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Lyra Urbanica (1); Or, the Social Effusions of the Celebrated Captain Charles Morris
Lyra Urbanica Or the Social Effusions of the Celebrated Captain Charles Morris - 1 Author:Charles Morris Volume: 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1840 Original Publisher: R. Bentley Subjects: Juvenile Nonfiction / Poetry / General Juvenile Nonfiction / Poetry / Humorous Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It ... more »has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: FALSE PLEASURE. The lure of feign'd Love I detest: If no stamp on the bosom there be, The coin is too base for my breast, And ne'er can be current with me. When the heart's melting energies wake, And Sympathy hallows Desire, Then the bosom's soft impulse I take, And glow in the soul-mingled fire. But the trade of the sense I forswear, The market of Meanness and Guile, Where Want and Distaste hide their tear In the mask of a heart-broken smile. The 'semblance of Pleasure, thus shown, Strikes death on the pulse of the heart; The soul-shocking farce I disown, And in sickness and sadness depart. Oh, could the flush'd rake but discern The motive that lives in the kiss, When the lips of cold Misery turn To barter their counterfeit bliss -- Could he bear the sad passive disgust That breaks through the guinea-gain'd smile : Could he see a heart dragg'd through the dust For a purpose so joyless and vile? But the brute may move pity at least Whom fate has thus grossly combined, Where the man seems transform'd to a beast, And his frame to brute impulse confined; For ne'er on a hog of this stye Soft Sympathy's ardours have stole, Ne'er tenderness swell'd in his eye, Or loveliness sweeten'd his soul. And ever 'mongst men will be found Two sorts, from the Line to the Pole: The coarse, in gross matter still bound; And the finer, sublimed by the soul. The one cannot feel or conceive What the othe...« less