Sorrow

5The world once smiling to my view,

6Showed scenes of endless bliss and joy;

7The world I then but little knew,

8Ah! little knew how pleasures cloy;

9All then was jocund, all was gay,

10No thought beyond the present hour,

11I danced in pleasure's fading ray,

12Fading alas! as drooping flower.

13Nor do the heedless in the throng,

14One thought beyond the morrow give[,]

15They court the feast, the dance, the song,

16Nor think how short their time to live.

17The heart that bears deep sorrow's trace,

18What earthly comfort can console,

19It drags a dull and lengthened pace,

20'Till friendly death its woes enroll. —

21The sunken cheek, the humid eyes,

22E'en better than the tongue can tell;

23In whose sad breast deep sorrow lies,

24Where memory's rankling traces dwell. —

25The rising tear, the stifled sigh,

26A mind but ill at ease display,

27Like blackening clouds in stormy sky,

28Where fiercely vivid lightnings play.

29Thus when souls' energy is dead,

30When sorrow dims each earthly view,

31When every fairy hope is fled,

32We bid ungrateful world adieu.