C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Spleen

Hail, wayward Queen!
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen;
Parent of vapors, and of female wit,
Who give the hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways,
Make some take physic, others scribble plays:
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
And send the godly in a pet to pray.

Pope.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low’ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o’ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears;
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

Cowper.

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