Effervesces, you trace the completed design
In an elegant bead-work of bubbles!
And yet constantly secretly eating its way,
The shrewd acid is making the substance its prey,
Like some sorrow beyond inquisition,
Which is gnawing the heart and the brain all the while
That the face is illumed by its cheerfullest smile,
And the wit is in bright ebullition.
But still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff
Has corroded and deepen'd some portions enough—