Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient: 
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.

IX.

When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures;
Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.

X.

Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? 
Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.

XI.

Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him,
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.

XII.

Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor’s approval: 
Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.

XIII.

Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns. 
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.

XIV.

The best loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish
Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.

XV.

True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: 
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.

XVI.

Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;
But in your secret heart ’t is of your faults you are proud.

XVII.

Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.

XVIII.

Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years’ steady sifting,
Some of them turn into friends.  Friends are the sunshine of life.

Regardant

As I lay at your feet that afternoon,
Little we spoke,—­you sat and mused,
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune,

And I worshipped you, with a sense confused
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way,
While my hungry eyes your face perused

To catch and brand on my soul for aye
The subtle smile which had grown my doom. 
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay

Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room. 
I rose to go.  You stood so fair
And dim in the dead day’s tender gloom: 

All at once, or ever I was aware,
Flashed from you on me a warm strong wave
Of passion and power; in the silence there