Ye who know the reason, tell me
How is it that instinct
Prompts the heart to like or not like
At its own capricious will?
Tell me by what hidden magic
Our impressions first are led
Into liking or disliking,
Oft before a word is said?
Why should smiles sometimes repel us?
Bright eyes turn our feelings cold?
What is it that comes to tell us
All that glitters is not gold?
Oh! no feature, plain or striking,
But a power we cannot shun
Prompts our liking and disliking,
Ere acquaintance hath begun.
Is it instinct? or some spirit
Which protects us, and controls
Every impulse we inherit,
By some sympathy of souls?
Is it instinct? is it nature?
Or some freak or fault of chance,
Which our liking or disliking
Limits to a single glance?
Like presentiment of danger,
Though the sky no shadow flings;
Or that inner sense, still stranger,
Of unseen, unuttered things?
Is it? oh! can no one tell me,
No one show sufficient cause
Why our likings and dislikings
Have their own instinctive laws?
854
_The Bitterness of Estrangement._--To be estranged from one whom we have
tenderly and constantly loved, is one of the bitterest trials the heart
can ever know.
--_Prynne._
855
There is no place where weeds do not grow, and there is no heart where
errors are not to be found.
856
We open the hearts of others when we open our own.
857
Earth hath nothing more tender than a woman's heart, when it is the
abode of piety.
858
And yet when all is thought and said,
The heart still overrules the head.
859
The All-Seeing Eye, whom the sun, moon and stars obey, and under whose
watchful care even comets perform their stupendous revolutions--pervades
the inmost recesses of the human heart, and will reward us according to
our merits.
860
There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.
861
To meet, to know, to love--and then to part,
Is the sad tale of many a human heart.
--_Coleridge._
862
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not
sufficient for a kite's (bird of the hawk kind) dinner, yet the whole
world is not sufficient for it.
--_Quarles._
863