| |
From “Fanny”
BUT Fortune, like some others of her sex, | |
| Delights in tantalizing and tormenting. | |
| One day we feed upon their smiles,—the next | |
| Is spent in swearing, sorrowing, and repenting. * * * * * | |
| Eve never walked in Paradise more pure | 5 |
| Than on that morn when Satan played the devil | |
| With her and all her race. A lovesick wooer | |
| Ne’er asked a kinder maiden, or more civil, | |
| Than Cleopatra was to Antony | |
| The day she left him on the Ionian sea. | 10 |
| |
| The serpent—loveliest in his coilèd ring, | |
| With eye that charms, and beauty that outvies | |
| The tints of the rainbow—bears upon his sting | |
| The deadliest venom. Ere the dolphin dies | |
| Its hues are brightest. Like an infant’s breath | 15 |
| Are tropic winds before the voice of death | |
| |
| Is heard upon the waters, summoning | |
| The midnight earthquake from its sleep of years | |
| To do its task of woe. The clouds that fling | |
| The lightning brighten ere the bolt appears; | 20 |
| The pantings of the warrior’s heart are proud | |
| Upon that battle-morn whose night-dews wet his shroud; | |
| The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest; | |
| The leaves of autumn smile when fading fast; | |
| The swan’s last song is sweetest. | 25 |
| |
