Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume III/Pleasure Becomes Pain

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XIV.

THE AUTHOR AND THE ACTRESS.

I cannot count the changes of my heart,
    So often has it turned away from things
Once idols of its being. They depart—
    Hopes, fancies, joys, illusions, as if wings
Sprang suddenly from all old ties, to start;
    Or, if they linger longer, life but brings
Weariness, hollowness, canker, soil, and stain,
Till the heart saith of pleasure, it is pain.

Blanchard’s title is:

PLEASURE BECOMES PAIN

From Moralising in The London Literary Gazette, 1st July 1826