Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1839.pdf/74

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Thy own quick feeling must have taught The key-note to his own; For only do we sympathize With what ourselves have known. The grief, the struggle, and the care, We never knew until we share.

The proud—the sensitive—the shy— And of such are combined The troubled elements that make The poet’s troubled mind. He dreameth of a lovelier earth, But must bide where he had birth.

Beneath that soft Italian sky, How much must thou have heard Of lofty hope—of low despair— Of deep emotions stirred— Thy woman’s heart became to thee Memory and music’s master-key.

He must have looked on that sweet face, And felt those eyes were kind; No need to fear from one like thee The mask, the mock, the blind. Where he might trust himself he knew— The instinct of the heart is true.

Thy page is open at my side— Thy latest one, which tells,* How in a world so seeming fair What hate and falsehood dwells. A dangerous Paradise is ours, The serpent hides beneath its flowers.

Hatred, and toil, and bitterness, And envyings, and wrath, Mask’d, each one in some fair disguise, Are round the human path. May every evil thou hast shown Be safely guarded from thine own!