And this is woman's fate: All her affections are called into life By winning flatteries, and then thrown back Upon themselves to perish; and her hear… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Beautiful and radiant May,
Is not this thy festal day ?
Is not this spring revelry
Held in honour, Queen, of thee ?

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.

How very desolate that breast must be,
Whose only joyance is in memory!
And what must woman suffer, thus betrayed?—
Her heart's most warm and precious feelings made
But things wherewith to wound: that heart—so weak,
So soft—laid open to the vulture's beak!