Page 178, line 2. My Alice. See notes to "Dream-Children."
Page 178, line 2. Mildred Elia, I take it. Alter these words, in the London Magazine, came this passage:—
"From her, and from my passion for her—for I first learned love from a picture—Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical lines, which thou mayst see, if haply thou hast never seen them, Reader, in the margin.[1] But my Mildred grew not old, like the imaginery Helen."
This ballad, written in gentle ridicule of Lamb's affection for the Blakesware portrait, and Mary Lamb's first known poem, was printed in the John Woodvil volume, 1802, and in the Works, 1818.
[Footnote 1:
"High-born Helen, round your dwelling,
These twenty years I've paced in vain:
Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty
Hath been to glory in his pain.
"High-born Helen, proudly telling
Stories of thy cold disdain;
I starve, I die, now you comply,
And I no longer can complain.
"These twenty years I've lived on tears,
Dwelling for ever on a frown;
On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread;
I perish now you kind are grown.
"Can I, who loved ray beloved
But for the scorn 'was in her eye,'
Can I be moved for my beloved,
When she returns me sigh for sigh?
"In stately pride, by my bedside,
High-born Helen's portrait hung;
Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays
Are nightly to the portrait sung.
"To that I weep, nor ever sleep,
Complaining all night long to her.—
Helen, grown old, no longer cold,
Said—'you to all men I prefer.'">[