Time Strips Our Illusions Of Their Hue,

For Pleasures Past I Do Not Grieve, Nor Perils Gathering Near; My Greatest Grief Is That I Leave Nothing That Claims A Tear.

Such Is Your Cold Coquette, Who Can't Say "no," And Won't Say "yes," And Keeps You On And Off-ing On A Lee-shore, Till It Begins To Blow, Then Sees Your Heart Wreck'd, With An Inward Scoffing.

And I Would Hear Yet Once Before I Perish The Voice Which Was My Music... Speak To Me!

For Truth Is Always Strange; Stranger Than Fiction.

I Hate All Pain, Given Or Received; We Have Enough Within Us The Meanest Vassal As The Loftiest Monarch, Not To Add To Each Other's Natural Burden Of Mortal Misery.