Thomas Bailey Aldrich Quote

When I behold what pleasure is pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full possession falls from this,
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit, —
I am perplext, and often stricken mute,
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The winged insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.

Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical (1917)