“Oh! blame not the bard.”

The light, that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing.

Bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves.

Came but for friendship, and took away love.

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.

Disguise our bondage as we will, ‘Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

It is only to the happy that tears are a luxury.

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.

Though an angel should write, still ’tis devils must print.

And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns.

A pretty wife is something for the fastidious vanity of a roue to retire upon.

This wretched brain gave way, and I became a wreck at random driven, without one glimpse of reason or heaven.

My only books were woman’s looks, and folly’s all they’ve taught me.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

Fond memory brings the light of other days around me.

No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young dream.

From plants that wake when others sleep, from timid jasmine buds that keep their odour to themselves all day, but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out to every breeze that roams about.