The Argosy — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

122 PLEASURE AND SORROW. I READ within an ancient book one day Quaint lore that well beguiled my hour of leisure, And in its yellow pages chanced to stray Upon a legend of the Goddess Pleasure. That wayward nymph, escaping, it would seem, The crowd of zealous courtiers who had sought her, Had wandered to the margin of a stream, And here to bathe her rosy limbs bethought her. So by the covert side her clothes she laid, And loosed her sandals, never once discerning How pallid Sorrow lingered in the shade, | A pair of envious eyes upon her turning: Who, when she sported in the wave anon, Drawing anear with furtive glances eager, The dainty garments stole, and put them on To shroud her form, and veil her visage meagre. And thus disguised pale Sorrow went her way, And thus befooled, men rashly thronged around her, And seeking only Pleasure day by day, At last too surely only Sorrow found her. The volume slipped unheeded from my knee, As on the simple tale awhile I pondered, For many times since then it seems to me Sorrow in Pleasure’s stolen garb has wandered. And some she tempts with wealth, and some with wine, To follow where she leads, but on the morrow, Though in the chase they deemed her half divine, The face that mocks them is the face of Sorrow. True pleasure lives not here, and he to whom An earnest of her presence shall be given, Must learn in time to look beyond the tomb, And train his thoughts that they may rise to Heaven. SYDNEY GREY. comilecbooks;com ~~