The history of most fictions would be far stranger than the fictions themselves ; but it would be a dark and sad chronicle. - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

[Alvine] 'Tis one of those bright fictions that have made
The name of Greece only another word
For love and poetry ; with a green earth—
Groves of the graceful myrtle — summer skies,
Whose stars are mirror'd in ten thousand streams—
Winds that move but in perfume and in music,
And, more than all, the gift of woman's beauty.
What marvel that the earth, the sky, the sea,
Were filled with all those fine imaginings
That love creates, and that the lyre preserves !

To use the established phrase, three months of uninterrupted happiness glided away—a phrase, though in frequent use, whose accuracy I greatly doubt ; there being no such thing as uninterrupted happiness any how or any where.

The poets told thy birth Was welcomed upon earth By the sweet multitude of shining flowers,
By bursting buds, green leaves, and sunny hours.