The harsher passions from the heart had flown,
And Love regain’d his Subject and his Throne.
THE FAREWELL AND RETURN
[The next Tale, and a number of others, were originally designed for a separate volume, to be entitled “The Farewell and Return.” In a letter to Mrs. Leadbetter, written in 1823, the poet says—“In my ‘Farewell and Return’ I suppose a young man to take leave of his native place, and to exchange farewells with his friends and acquaintance there—in short, with as many characters as I have fancied I could manage. These, and their several situations and prospects, being briefly sketched, an interval is supposed to elapse; and our youth, a youth no more, returns to the scene of his early days. Twenty years have passed; and the interest, if there be any, consists in the completion, more or less unexpected, of the history of each person to whom he had originally bidden farewell.”
The reader will find the Tales written on this plan divided each into two or more sections, and will easily perceive where the farewell terminates and the return begins.]
TALE VI.
THE FAREWELL AND RETURN.
I.
I am of age, and, now no more the Boy,
Am ready Fortune’s favours to enjoy,
Were they, too, ready; but, with grief I speak,