Part 16 (2/2)

Of all thy gifts I beg but this, Glut all mankind with more, Transport them with redoubled bliss, But only mine restore.

With thought of pleasure once possessed, I'm now as cursed as I was blessed: Oh, would the charming hours return, How pleased I'd live, how free from pain, I ne'er would pine, I ne'er would mourn.

_Though barred the hopes of greater gain._

But oh, the blessing I implore Not fate itself can give!

Since time elapsed exists no more, No power can bid it live.

Our days soon vanish into naught, And have no being but in thought.

Whate'er began must end at last, In vain we twice would youth enjoy, In vain would we recall the past, _Or now the future hours employ._

Deceived by hope, and racked by fear, No longer life can please; I'll then no more its torments bear, Since death so soon can ease.

This hour I'll die--but, let me pause-- A rising doubt my courage awes.

a.s.sist, ye powers that rule my fate, Alarm my thoughts, my rage restrain, Convince my soul there's yet a state _That must succeed my present pain._

O Flattery, how potent is thy sway! How wide the bounds of thy pleasing jurisdiction!

_On the story of Pyramus and Thisbe._

SONNET.

The nymph who Pyramus with love inspired Pierces the wall, with equal pa.s.sion fired: Cupid from distant Cyprus thither flies, And views the secret breach with laughing eyes.

Here silence, vocal, mutual vows conveys, And whispering eloquent, their love betrays: Though chained by fear, their voices dare not pa.s.s, Their souls, transmitted through the c.h.i.n.k, embrace.

Ah, woful story of disastrous love!

Ill-fated haste that did their ruin prove!

One death, one grave, unite the faithful pair, And in one common fame their memories share.

No parents can see the deformity of their own children, and still stronger is this self-deception with respect to the offspring of the mind.

At parting, Don Quixote addressing himself to Don Lorenzo: ”I know not,”

said he, ”whether I have already told your wors.h.i.+p, but if I have, let me now repeat the intimation, that when you are inclined to take the shortest and easiest road to the inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, you have no more to do, but to leave on one side the path of poetry, which is pretty narrow, and follow that of knight-errantry, which, though the narrowest of all others, will conduct you to the throne of empire in the turning of a straw.”

Riches are able to solder abundance of flaws.

Every sheep to its like.

Let every goose a gander choose.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MARRIAGE OF CAMACHO THE RICH; AND ALSO THE ADVENTURE OF BASILIUS THE POOR.

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