Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume II/Gossipping

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XII.

GOSSIPPING.

These are the spiders of society;
They weave their petty webs of lies and sneers,
And lie themselves in ambush for the spoil.
The web seems fair, and glitters in the sun,
And the poor victim winds him in the toil
Before he dreams of danger, or of death.
Alas, the misery that such inflict!
A word, a look, have power to wring the heart,
And leave it struggling hopeless in the net
Spread by the false and cruel, who delight
In the ingenious torment they contrive.

In Blanchard