To spare’s the wish of little souls,
The great but gather to bestow;
Yon current down the mountain rolls,
And stagnates in the swamp below.
To these specimens of the elegant and pathetic I cannot avoid adding the three sweet stanzas of Ebn Alrumi, who flourished in the tenth century of the Christian æra, on a lady weeping.
When I beheld thy blue eyes shine
Thro’ the bright drops that pity drew,
I saw beneath those tears of thine
A blue eyed violet bath’d in dew.
The violet ever scents the gale,