A smile, a ghastly, withering smile,
Convulsive o'er her features play'd.
MRS. HOLFORD'S Margaret of Anjou.
Oh, that we were on the dark wave together,
With but one plank between us and destruction,
That I might grasp him in these desperate arms,
And plunge with him amid the weltering billows,
And view him gasp for life!
Fear'd, shunn'd, belied, ere youth had lost her force,
He hated men too much to feel remorse,
And thought the vice of wrath a sacred call,
To
pay the injuries of some on all.
There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,
That caus'd emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sigh'd farewell!
BYRON'S Corsair.
There is no passion
More spectral or fantastical than Hate;
Not even its opp'site, Love, so peoples air
With phantoms, as this madness of the heart.
If a grasp of yours
Would raise us from the gulf wherein we 're plung'd,
No hand of ours would stretch itself to meet it.
BYRON'S Two Foscar They'd have him live, because he fears not death. BYRON'S Two Foscuri.
They did not know how hate can burn
In hearts once chang'd from soft to stern,
Nor all the false and fatal zeal
The convert of revenge can feel.
Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,
To seize and share the dear caress;
But love itself could never pant
For all that beauty sighs to grant,
With half the fervour hate bestows
Upon the last embrace of foes!
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet confusion lost, she blush'd assent.
'Twas thy high purity of soul,
Thy thought-revealing eye,
That plac'd me, spell-bound, at your feet,
Sweet wand'rer from the sky!
Then take my flower, and let its leaves
Beside thy heart be cherish'd near-
While thy confiding heart receives
The thoughts it whispers to thine ear.
T'was then the blush suffus'd her cheek,
Which told what words could never speak ;-
The answer's written deeply now
On this warm cheek, and glowing brow.
ENJOYMENT-HAPPINESS - PROSPERITY.
Prosperity is the very bond of love,
Whose fresh complexion, and whose heart together,
Affliction alters.
'Tis not to any rank confin'd,
But dwells in every honest mind;
Be justice then your sole pursuit ;
Plant virtue, and content's the fruit.
Consider man in every sphere,
Then tell me is your lot severe
'Tis murmur, discontent, distrust,
That makes you wretched: God is just:
We're born a restless, needy crew;
Show me a happier man than you.
Luxuriant joy,
And pleasure in excess, sparkling, exult
On every brow, and revel unrestrain❜d.
But such a sacred and homefelt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never felt till now.
SOMERVILE'S Chase.
How beat our hearts, big with tumultuous joy! SOMERVILE'S Chase.
Whate'er the motive, pleasure is the mark:
For her the black assassin draws his sword;
For her dark statesmen trim their midnight lamp;
For her the saint abstains; the miser starves;
The stoic proud, for pleasure, pleasure scorns;
For her affliction.'s daughters grief indulge,
And find, or hope, a luxury in tears;—
For her, guilt, shame, toil, danger, we defy.
YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.
The spider's most attenuated web
is cord-is cable, to man's tender tie
Of earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
YOUNG'S Night Thoughts
What thing so good which not some harm may bring?
Even to be happy is a dangerous thing.
LORD STERLINE.
They live too long who happiness outlive;
For life and death are things indiflerent;
Each to be chose, as either brings content.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,
And they are fools who roam;
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut-our home.
A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunts the rich man's door,
Embittering all his state.
Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
Who that define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?
POPE'S Essay on Man.
Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,)
Virtue alone is happiness below.
POPE'S Essay on Man
ENJOYMENT - HAPPINESS &c.
Condition, circumstance is not the thing-
Bliss is the same in subject or in king;
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds, a friend.
For the wild bliss of nature needs alloy,
And fear and sorrow fan the fires of joy.
I cannot think of sorrow now; and doubt
It e'er I felt it 't is so dazzled from
My memory, by this oblivious transport.
There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Love-fame-ambition-avarice-'t is the same,
For all are meteors with a different name.
Am I already mad?
And does delirium utter such sweet words
Into a dreamer's ear?
Oh! happy pair, to every blessing born!
For you may life's calm stream unruffled run;
you its roses bloom without a thorn,
And bright as morning shine its evening sun!
For
And may the stream of thy maturing life
For ever flow, in blissful sunlight, through
A fairy scene with gladsome beauty rife,
As ever greeted the enraptur'd view!
The rapture dwelling within my breast,
And fondly telling its fears to rest,
Comes o'er me, wearing its charmed chain,
No vestige learning of sorrow's chain.
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