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All here exhilarates and gladdens, And not a thought intrudes that saddens; A wild delirium of joy Without control, without alloy, Intoxicating and entrancing Till heart and brain and nerves are dancing!*****Ah! with a sudden shock of pain, I'm thrown back on myself again— Descending on the final rally, The curtain falls upon—the Ballet! And leaves me once again to feel The disillusion of the real; To pass into the gloomy night With no deceptive splendours bright; To meditate how transitory Are all man's pleasures, all his glory; How fast his happy moments fleet, While misery moves with leaden feet.*****What I moralise in style so trite That Mawworms might your verses cite! Away with thoughts which, false or true, Are profitless and far from new; 'Tis much to gain an hour's delight, And wing with joy time's weary flight: To analyse our joys away Is but mere folly to display; If all our joys are but illusions Our sorrows also are delusions: If nature cheats us into grief Should we not thank her for relief? If life is a dissolving view Then death no more than life is true:
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