It glides along the water looking blackly, Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe, Where none can make out what you say or do. - Lord Byron

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl- songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,”
Utter’d by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, ’stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse ’gainst “bonos mores,”
With a long memorandum of old stories.

If I should meet thee
After long years
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,
That not a single accent seems uncouth,
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,
Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.