Madmoments: or First Verseattempts By a Bornnatural. Addressed to the Lightheaded of Society at Large, by Henry Ellison |
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PLEASURES. |
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 | Madmoments: or First Verseattempts |  |
PLEASURES.
Say what is Pleasure? sensual joys decay,Returning to the dust from whence they came:
Brute passions waste themselves in their own flame:
And their spent ashes not one genial ray,
To kindle up a Joy for Afterday,
Retain: they desecrate this mortal frame,
The temple of the soul, and leave the same
A shattered tenement of mouldering clay:
All these are of the Earth, and tho' enjoyed
Unto the height, still surfeited and cloyed
They leave us, wondering whither all has fled:
True Pleasure by high faculties employed
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Which flourish most, when sense grows dull and dead.
| Madmoments: or First Verseattempts | |