POSSESSION.
When I behold what pleasure is pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full possession falls from this,
How fairer seem the blossoms than the fruit,—
I am perplext, and often stricken mute,
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The wingèd insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
Pursuit and Possession. T.B. ALDRICH.
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remembered joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were, they are, they yet shall be.
The Little Cloud. J. MONTGOMERY.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
Childe Harold, Canto II. LORD BYRON.
I die,—but first I have possessed,
And come what may, I have been blessed.
The Giaour. LORD BYRON.