As rising on its purple wing The insect-queen[82] of Eastern spring, O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer 390 Invites the young pursuer near, And leads him on from flower to flower A weary chase and wasted hour, Then leaves him, as it soars on high, With panting heart and tearful eye: So Beauty lures the full-grown child, With hue as bright, and wing as wild: A chase of idle hopes and fears, Begun in folly, closed in tears. If won, to equal ills betrayed,[dm] 400 Woe waits the insect and the maid; A life of pain, the loss of peace; From infant's play, and man's caprice: The lovely toy so fiercely sought Hath lost its charm by being caught, For every touch that wooed its stay Hath brushed its brightest hues away, Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone, 'Tis left to fly or fall alone. With wounded wing, or bleeding breast, 410 Ah! where shall either victim rest? Can this with faded pinion soar From rose to tulip as before? Or Beauty, blighted in an hour, Find joy within her broken bower? No: gayer insects fluttering by Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die, And lovelier things have mercy shown To every failing but their own, And every woe a tear can claim 420 Except an erring Sister's shame. * * * * * The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes, Is like the Scorpion girt by fire; In circle narrowing as it glows,[dn] The flames around their captive close, Till inly searched by thousand throes, And maddening in her ire, One sad and sole relief she knows-- The sting she nourished for her foes, Whose venom never yet was vain, 430 Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, And darts into her desperate brain: So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;[83] So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,[do] Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death! * * * * *