Classic Poem

TO SENSIBILITY .

I ALWAYS loved thee, Sensibility!
And though thou hast but served to work me woe,
Do love thee still! — Nurtured beneath thine eye,
" For me the meanest, simplest flowers that blow"
Can raise up thoughts that lie too deep for tears.
Not all the joys the multitude can know,
Should e'er seduce my bosom to forego
Thy sacred feelings! — Yet from earliest years,
Like that frail plant whose shrinking leaves betray
The careless pressure of an idle hand,
My heart, unschooled in guile, could ne'er command
Its hectics of the moment: — let thy ray,
Then, thou sweet source of sorrow and delight,
Beam on thy votary's soul with more attempered light!