Thought Would Destroy Their Paradise.

The Applause Of List'ning Senates To Command, The Threats Of Pain And Ruin To Despise, To Scatter Plenty O'er A Smiling Land, And Read Their History In A Nation's Eyes.

And Moody Madness Laughing Wild Amid Severest Woe.

Poetry Is Thoughts That Breathe, And Words That Burn.

Hands That The Rod Of Empire Might Have Sway'd, Or Waked To Ecstasy The Living Lyre.

To Each His Suff'rings; All Are Men, Condemn'd Alike To Groan,- The Tender For Another's Pain, Th' Unfeeling For His Own. Yet Ah! Why Should They Know Their Fate, Since Sorrow Never Comes Too Late, And Happiness Too Swiftly Flies? Thought Would Destroy Their Paradise. No More; Where Ignorance Is Bliss, 't Is Folly To Be Wise.