Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact, in virtues name, let Crabbe attest, Though Natures sternest painter, yet the best.
Still from the fount of joys delicious springs Some bitter oer the flowers its bubbling venom flings.1
Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 82.
Note 1. Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat (In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers).Lucretius: iv. 1133. [back]