Lovely and pure no bird of Paradise, to feed on dew and flower-fragrance, and never to alight on earth, till shot by death with pointless shaft; but a rose, to fix its roots in the genial earth, thence to suck up nutriment and bloom strong and healthy, not to droop and fade amid sunshine and zephyrs on a soilless rock! Her marriage was no meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry of her wooing; nor did the surly over-browing rock of reality ever cast the dusky shadow of this earth on the soft moonlight of her love's first phantasies.
[Hymen's Torch]
The torch of love may be blown out wholly, but not that of Hymen. Whom the flame and its cheering light and genial warmth no longer bless, him the smoke stifles; for the spark is inextinguishable, save by death:
nigro circumvelatus amictu Mæret Hymen, fumantque atræ sine lumine tædæ.
[Youth and Age]
Youth beholds happiness gleaming in the prospect. Age looks back on the happiness of youth; and instead of hopes, seeks its enjoyment in the recollections of hope.