ON BURNING A PACKET OF LETTERS.
By A.A. Watts, Esq.
Relics of love, and life's enchanted spring,
Of hopes born, rainbow-like, of smiles and tears:—
With trembling hand do I unloose the string,
Twined round the records of my youthful years.
Yet why preserve memorials of a dream,
Too bitter-sweet to breathe of aught but pain!
Why court fond memory for a fitful gleam
Of faded bliss, that cannot bloom again!
The thoughts and feelings these sad relics bring
Back on my heart, I would not now recall:—
Since gentler ties around its pulses cling,
Shall spells less hallowed hold them still in thrall!
Can withered hopes that never came to flower
Match with affections long and dearly tried
Love, that has lived through many a stormy hour,
Through good and ill,—and time and change defied!
Perish each record that might wake a thought
That would be treason to a faith like this!—
Why should the spectres of past joys be brought
To fling their shadows o'er my present bliss!
Yet,—ere we part for ever,—let me pay
A last, fond tribute to the sainted dead:
Mourn o'er these wrecks of passion's earlier day,
With tears as wild as once I used to shed.
What gentle words are flashing on my eye!
What tender truths in every line I trace!
Confessions—penned with many a deep drawn sigh.—
Hopes—like the dove—with but one resting place!
How many a feeling, long—too long—represt,
Like autumn flowers, here opened out at last!
How many a vision of the lonely breast
Its cherish'd radiance on these leaves hath cast?
And ye, pale violets, whose sweet breath hath driven
Back on my soul the dreams I fain would quell;
To whose faint perfume such wild power is given,
To call up visions—only loved too well;—
Ye too must perish!—Wherefore now divide
Tributes of love—first offerings of the heart;—
Gifts—that so long have slumbered side by side;
Tokens of feeling—never meant to part!
A long farewell:—sweet flowers, sad scrolls, adieu!
Yes, ye shall be companions to the last:—
So perish all that would revive anew
The fruitless memories of the faded past!
But, lo! the flames are curling swiftly round
Each fairer vestige of my youthful years;
Page after page that searching blaze hath found,
Even whilst I strive to trace them through my tears.
The Hindoo widow, in affection strong,
Dies by her lord, and keeps her faith unbroken;
Thus perish all which to those wrecks belong,
The living memory—with the lifeless token!
Barry Cornwall has contributed several minor pieces, though we fear his poetical reputation will not be increased by either of them.
Some of the minor pieces are gems in their way, and one of the most beautiful will be found appended to our current Number.
To the prose:—The first in the volume is "the Sisters," a pathetic tale of about thirty pages, which a little of the fashionable affectation of some literary coxcombs might fine-draw over a brace of small octavos. As it stands, the story is gracefully, yet energetically told, and is entitled to the place it occupies. The author of Pelham (vide the newspapers) has a pleasant conceit in the shape of a whole-length of fashion, which, being the best and shortest in its line that we have met with, will serve to enliven our extracts:—