I do remember once--'tis long agone--
Of stripping to the waist to wade the Tyne--
The English Tyne, dark, sluggish, broad, and deep;
And just when middle-way, there caught mine eye,
A lamprey of enormous size pursuing me!
L---- what a fright! I bobb'd, I splashed, I flew.
He had a creditor's keen, ominous look,
I never saw an uglier--but a real one.
This is implanted in man's very nature,
It cannot be denied. And once I deemed it
The most degrading stain our nature bore:
Wearing a shade of every hateful vice,
Ingratitude, injustice, selfishness.
But I was wrong, for I have traced the stream
Back to its fountain in the inmost cave,
And found in postulate of purest grain,
It's first beginning.--It is not the man,
The friend who has obliged us, we would shun,
But the conviction which his presence brings,
That we have done him wrong:--a sense of grief
And shame at our own rash improvidence:
The heart bleeds for it, and we love the man
Whom we would shun. The feeling's hard to bear.
A BLUSTERING FELLOW! There's a deadly bore,
Placed in a good man's way, who only yearns
For happiness and joy.
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