August 26th, 1800.
How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt.
HELEN REPENTANT TOO LATE
1
High-born Helen, round your dwelling
These twenty years I've paced in vain:
Haughty beauty, your lover's duty
Has been to glory in his pain.
2
High-born Helen! proudly telling
Stories of your cold disdain;
I starve, I die, now you comply,
And I no longer can complain.
3
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.
4
Can I, who loved my Beloved
But for the "scorn was in her eye,"
Can I be moved for my Beloved,
When she "returns me sigh for sigh?"
5
In stately pride, by my bed-side,
High-born Helen's portrait's hung;
Deaf to my praise; my mournful lays
Are nightly to the portrait sung.
6
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."
Godwin returned from Wicklow the week before last, tho' he did not reach home till the Sunday after. He might much better have spent that time with you.—But you see your invitation would have been too late. He greatly regrets the occasion he mist of visiting you, but he intends to revisit Ireland in the next summer, and then he will certainly take Keswick in his way. I dined with the Heathen on Sunday.