“Be not deceived, fond heart,
Be not deceived;
Words are but sounds, and looks changing and vain;
None are believed, fond heart,
None are believed:
When they delude, never trust them again.
“Seek not for truths, sad heart,
Seek not for truth;
Truth’s in the grave, and there only will stay;
Maiden and youth, sad heart,
Maiden and youth:
Each will beguile and then each will betray.
“Love is a dream, fond heart,
Love is a dream;
Clothed with delight for the heart and the eye;
Bright though it seem, fond heart,
Bright though it seem,
Sleep not—you dream but to wake—and to die!”
“Mustn’t allow you to sing such melancholy ditties, don’t you see,” exclaimed Dr. Tourniquet, standing before the young musician, where he had been for several minutes. “They make every body miserable and yourself too; and besides this they are very hurtful in their effects upon the system. They are a sort of sedative that affect the head and the heart at the same time—prevent eating, drinking, or sleeping with any thing like a healthy state of feeling. Allow me the privilege of an old friend to ask you what’s the matter with you?”
“Alas! it is a malady beyond the reach of medicine!” exclaimed Zabra mournfully.
“That’s to be proved, don’t you see,” replied the doctor. “I have for some days noticed you running into holes and corners away from all your friends. It is both unreasonable and unsocial. I don’t pretend to know what has been the occasion of it; but as you have acquainted me with your secret, I can make a shrewd guess. Ah! this love’s a terrible thing.”
“After having been assured you were beloved,” said the young musician; “after having convinced your own heart that your affection was returned with the same ardour with which it was given, to find doubt follow doubt, till a certainty that you were not loved gradually forced itself on your mind—this, this is terrible.”
“But that cannot have been your case, don’t you see,” exclaimed Tourniquet. “You cannot doubt—there’s nothing for you to dread.”
“It is too true. I have been deceived,” replied Zabra, and his features became overcast with a deeper melancholy. “All that I have done has been unavailing; all that I have dared has been cast to the winds. To be the sole possessor of one heart I thought would be a sufficient recompense for all my past sufferings, and dangers, and difficulties; but now I have discovered the unwelcome truth, that another has acquired the ownership of what I strove so earnestly to gain. Oh shame on the treachery that can allure a trusting soul into the conviction that its sweet hopes are acknowledged and its fond dreams replied to! and then, as a new face or a more beguiling nature comes upon the scene, will turn to it with a fondness which should have been confined to the sincere one, and leave all those hopes and dreams to be crushed under the withering touch of despair!”