I hate all pain, Given or received; we have enough within us The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch, Not to add to each other's natural burden Of mortal misery.
The music, and the banquet, and the wine-- The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers, The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments-- The white arms and the raven hair--the braids, And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace, An India in itself, yet dazzling not.
But I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric - and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.
The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket;--lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. An, nutbrown partridges! An, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!--'Tis no sport for peasants.
Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse borne away with every breath! Misplaced upon the throne misplaced in life. I know not what I could have been, but feel I am not what I should be let it end.
Tis an old lesson; time approves it true, And those who know it best, deplore it most; When all is won that all desire to woo, The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost.
The lapse of ages changes all things - time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself.