While if all praised and honoured, she herself
Meekly received it with a sweet surprise,
Seeking henceforth to be what now she deemed
Was but a phantasy in loving eyes.
When the fair sunshine of her happy home
Tuned her whole heart and all her life to praise,
She ever tried to cheer some gloomier lot,
From the abounding brightness of its ways.
And many a weary sufferer blest the hand
Which knew so well a healing balm to pour;
While hungry voices never were denied
By her, who kept, as steward, a poor man’s store.
Thus when, from all the labour of her love,
She passed so sadly to a bed of pain,
And when from tongue to tongue the story went,
That none would see the honoured face again:
It was a personal grief to thousand hearts
Outside the sphere in which her lot was cast,
And tens of thousands sought to have a share
In loving honour paid her at the last.
E’en death is powerless o’er a life like hers,
Its radiance lingers, though its sun has set;
Rich and unstinted was the seed she sowed,
The golden harvest is not gathered yet.”
Journal.
“March 25.—A ‘Spelling Bee’ at Mrs. Dundas’s. I was plucked as I entered the room over the word Camelopard.
“Dined at the Tower of London with Everard Primrose; only young Lord Mayo there. At 11 P.M. the old ceremony of relieving guard took place. I stood with Everard and a file of soldiers on a little raised terrace. A figure with a lanthorn emerged from a dark hole.
“‘Who goes there?’ shouted the soldiers.