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Show f OLD MASTERS . There's not a joythe world can give like that it takes away. When the glow of earthly thought declines in feeling's dull decay: 'Tis not ou youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart i- gone, ere youth itself he' past. Then the few whose spirits flout above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt. or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone. or only jKiints in vain The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again. 1 Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been. Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanished scene As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though thev be. So midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me! Lord Byron : Selected verses from "Youth and Age." |