Methinks we must have known some former state More glorious than our present, and the heart Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left By past magnif… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Life is but the spirit's prison,
Where its wings are furl'd,
Stretching to their flight in vain, —
Seeking that eternal home
Which is in a world to come.

The clouds, and not the stars, to them
The omen and the sign be given—
The clouds, the vapours of our soil,
Not stars, whose element is heaven.
The deepening shade, the flitting light,
Mark what each coming month will know—
The passing joy, the constant care,
Of life's sad pilgrimage below.

Alas! when angry words begin Their entrance on the lip to win; When sullen eye and flushing cheek Say more than bitterest tone could speak; And look and word, than fire or steel, Give wounds more deep,—time cannot heal;
And anger digs, with tauntings vain,
A gulf it may not pass again.