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

Other sorrows soften the heart, — poverty hardens it. Nothing like poverty for chilling the affections and repressing the spirits. Its annoyances are all of the small and mean order ; its regrets all of a selfish kind ; its presence is perpetual ; and the scant meal, and the grudged fire, are repeated day by day, yet who can become accustomed to them ?

Passing thus with time away,
The sweet gifts of youth decay ;
Fleet their blooms, thus one by one,
Till their very form is gone ;
Memory left but to declare
How beautiful and sweet they were!
In the first blue noon of Spring,
Who can think on withering?

I speak of my own feelings—I can judge
Of others but by outward show, and that
Is falser than the actor's studied part.
We dress our words and looks in borrow'd robes:
The mind is as the face—for who goes forth
In public walks without a veil at least?