How should the cloud cry to the summer sea,
Take not the leaden impress from my sails?
How should the amorous eve not taste the glee
That mantles golden o’er its hills and vales?
Were ocean to contemn the rain’s increase,
Or woods to spurn the dew, and chide the wind;
Reft of their source, sudden they all would cease,
Lacking that element they once thought unkind:
So, were man shorn of passions and of hates,
And nicely pared of what uneven seems,
He’d seem some plaything, jostled by rough fates
Into existence, from poor Fancy’s dreams.
Nature has naught superfluous,—clip her pride,
You mar her beauties, and the man beside.