* * * * *
Metellus is a lover: one whose ear
(I have been told) is duller than his sight.
The day of his departure had drawn near;
And (meeting her beloved over-night)
Softly and tenderly Corinna sigh'd:
"Won't you be quite as happy now without me?"
Metellus, in his innocence replied,
"Corinna! O Corinna! can you doubt me?"
* * * * *
One leg across his wide arm-chair,
Sat Singleton, and read Voltaire;
And when (as well he might) he hit
Upon a splendid piece of wit,
He cried: "I do declare now, this
Upon the whole is not amiss."
And spent a good half-hour to show
By metaphysics why 'twas so.
* * * * *
"Why do I smile?" To hear you say,
"One month, and then the shortest day!"
The shortest, whate'er month it be,
Is the bright day you pass with me.
* * * * *
Each year bears something from us as it flies,
We only blow it farther with our sighs.
WIT AND LAUGHTER
[Sidenote: _Hazlitt_]
There is nothing more ridiculous than laughter without a cause, nor
anything more troublesome than what are called laughing people. A
professed laugher is as contemptible and tiresome a character as a
professed wit: the one is always contriving something to laugh at, the
other is always laughing at nothing.
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