SONNET.
O Love! thou art the soul’s fixed star, whose light— A rapture felt through all the rolling years,— Absorbs with silent touch the mourner’s tears, A guide, a glory through our mortal night;— All other passions, be they dark or bright, All high desires are but thy subject spheres, And captive servitors, whose pathway veers, Obedient to thine all-pervading might;— And therefore I no hesitation make In choosing thee, a theme accounted old, Yet ever young, and for poor Marguerite’s sake I trust some kind remembrance to awake That shall in tenderest clasp her story hold, Even as a rose a drop of dew doth fold.
MARGUERITE
OR THE ISLE OF DEMONS.
The interior of a Convent in France: Group of Nuns listening to Marguerite narrating her adventure.
1545.