Far rather would I sit in solitude, Fond recollections all my fond heart's food,* FAREWELL TO LOVE.‡ FAREWELL, sweet Love yet blame you not my truth; More fondly ne'er did mother eye her child Than I your form: yours were my hopes of youth, And as you shaped my thoughts I sigh'd or smiled. While most were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, To you I gave my whole weak wishing heart. And when I met the maid that realized Your fair creations, and had won her kindness, Say but for her if aught on earth I prized! Your dreams alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness. *The forms of memory all my mental food-1817. + Than have the presence-Ib. Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1815; Literary Remains of S. T. C., vol. i. p. 280. O grief!—but farewell, Love! I will go play me With thoughts that please me less and less betray me. THE BUTTERFLY.* THE butterfly the ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name — But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life!-For in this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. MUTUAL PASSION. Altered and modernized from an old Poet.‡ I LOVE, and he loves me again, Yet dare I not tell who : For if the nymphs should know my swain, Yet while my joy's unknown, Its rosy buds are but half-blown : What no one with me shares, seems scarce my own. * Biographia Literaria, London, 1817, vol. i. p. 82. The Amulet, 1833. + Psyche means both butterfly and soul. Printed in The Courier, September 21, 1811. I'll tell, that if they be not glad, They yet may envy me: But then if I grow jealous mad, And of them pitied be, "Twould vex me worse than scorn! And yet it cannot be forborne, Unless my heart would like my thoughts be torn. He is, if they can find him, fair And fresh, and fragrant too; As after rain the summer air, That are this morning blown! Yet, yet I doubt, he is not known, Yet, yet I fear to have him fully shown. But he hath eyes so large, and bright, But then to raise my fears, His voice what maid soever hears Will be my rival, though she have but ears. I'll tell no more! yet I love him, And he loves me; yet so, That never one low wish did dim Our love's pure light, I know- That both of us would gain new fame, If love's strong fears would let me tell his name! THE THREE GRAVES. A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON'S TALE.* [THE Author has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was intended to be dramatic; that is suited to the narrator; and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively psychological. The story which must be supposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts is as follows :— Edward, a young farmer, meets at the house of Ellen her bosom-friend Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession * First printed at the end of the sixth number of The Friend (Thursday, September 21, 1809), as the third and fourth parts of a tale consisting of six. "The two last parts," adds the author, "may be given hereafter, if the present should appear to have afforded pleasure, and to have answered the purpose of a relief and amusement to my readers." of a competent property, and from having had no other children but Mary and another daughter (the father died in their infancy), retaining for the greater part her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance; but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable"Well, Edward! you are a handsome young fellow, and you shall have my daughter." From this time all their wooing passed under the mother's eyes; and, in fine, she became herself enamoured of her future son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the Tale are positive facts, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistaking her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion-" O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you-she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward! and I will this very day settle all my property on you." The Lover's eyes were now opened; and thus taken by surprise, whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of the guilt of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and |