Prompt to anger, grief, or spleen,

  Reason can dissolve the charm,

    And say, 'tis a fictitious scene.

  But to scenes of real woe,

    Where a wretch is truely dying,

  Wherefore do such numbers go,

    What can be the joy of sighing?

  Men of thought, who soar serene,

    And loftily philosophize,

  Will say they seek the solemn scene,

    To contemplate and sympathize.

  And all the throng will tell you so: ...

    'Tis sympathy that brings them there;

  They love to weep for others' woe,

    And come but to enjoy a tear.

  If to enjoy the tear that starts,

    They run the sorrow'd scene to see—

  Alas! for pity ... human hearts

    Delight in human misery.

  Still my wretched thought thus strays,

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