LETTER XX.
Harrington to Harriot.
Boston.
LAST night I went on a visit to your house: It was an adventure that would have done honour to the Knight of La Mancha. The moon ascended a clear, serene sky, the air was still, the bells sounded the solemn hour of midnight—I sighed—and the reason of it I need not tell you. This was, indeed, a pilgrimage; and no Musselman ever travelled barefooted to Mecca with more sincere devotion.
YOUR absence would cause an insufferable ennui in your friends, were it not for the art we have in making it turn to our amusement. Instead of wishing you were of our party, you are the goddess in whose honour we performed innumerable Heathenish rites. Libations of wine are poured out, but not a guest presumes to taste it, until they implore the name of Harriot; we hail the new divinity in songs, and strew around the flowers of poetry. You need not, however, take to yourself any extraordinary addition of vanity on the occasion as your absence will not cause any repining:
“Harriot our goddess and our grief no more.”
BUT to give you my opinion on this important matter, I must descend to plain truth, and acknowledge I had rather adore you a present mortal, than an absent divinity; and therefore wish for your return with more religious ardour than a devout disciple of the false prophet for the company of the Houri.
THANKS to the power of imagination for our fanciful interview. Methought I somewhere unexpectedly met you—but I was soon undeceived of my imaginary happiness, and I awoke, repeating these verses:—
THOUGH sleep her sable pinions spread,
My thoughts still run on you;
And visions hovering o’er my head,
Present you to my view.
By FANCY’S magick pencil drest,
I saw my Delia move;
I clasp’d her to my anxious breast,
With TEARS of joy and love.
Methought she said—“Why thus forlorn?—
Be all thy care resign’d:”—
I ’woke and found my Delia gone,
But still the TEAR behind.