What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour: For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee

Now what I love in women is, they won't Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it. So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.

Time strips our illusions of their hue, And one by one in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.