If solitude succeed to grief, Release from pain is slight relief; The vacant bosom's wilderness Might thank the pang that made it less.[113] 940 We loathe what none are left to share: Even bliss--'twere woe alone to bear; The heart once left thus desolate Must fly at last for ease--to hate. It is as if the dead could feel[114] The icy worm around them steal, And shudder, as the reptiles creep To revel o'er their rotting sleep, Without the power to scare away The cold consumers of their clay! 950 It is as if the desert bird,[115] Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream To still her famished nestlings' scream, Nor mourns a life to them transferred, Should rend her rash devoted breast, And find them flown her empty nest. The keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed. 960 Who would be doomed to gaze upon A sky without a cloud or sun? Less hideous far the tempest's roar, Than ne'er to brave the billows more--[ea] Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er, A lonely wreck on Fortune's shore, 'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay, Unseen to drop by dull decay;-- Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! 970 * * * * *