The New Zealand Survey
On Self Misery.—An Epigram
On Self Misery.—An Epigram.
Do pity the wretch who can have no enjoyment,
Unless from the help of another;
Whose addle mind him finds no native employment
Adapted heart-sorrows to smother:
For then, he’s afflicted with worst of all evils,
That e’er o’er the wretched could come;
His ways would declare, he is haunted by devils,
Which make of his misery the “sum!”
Society; Imagination; JoyWhile, how to escape from himself, is a querry;
Oft making him rush into woe!—
Or dreaming ’tis “life” to be thoughtlessly merry,
The pleasures of peace to forego;
How fatal such dreaming!—a snare, the invention
Of foes the most cruel, though sly;
False joys they would offer with blandest pretension,
Whose aim is the soul to destroy!