Delicious tears! the heart's own dew. - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Selfishness is hypocritical by nature, and seizes on the first decent excuse as a cloak ;

THE quiet of the evening hour
Was laid on every summer leaf;
That purple shade was on each flower,
At once so beautiful, so brief,
Only the aspen knew not rest,
But still, with an unquiet song,
Kept murmuring to the gentle west,
And cast a changeful shade along.

You said in our old ash-tree a bird had built its nest ;
Perhaps this very linnet has there its place of rest.
Now who will keep his little ones when night begins to fall ?
They have no other shelter, and they will perish all.
There'll be no more sweet singing within that lonely grove ;
Now, Henry, free your prisoner, I pray you, for my love.
Our father is a soldier, and in some distant war
He too might be a prisoner in foreign lands afar.