June 1, 1823.—Left, perhaps for ever, certainly for two years, the dearest spot to me in the world—a home dearer to my children than any home I ever saw to any other human beings—beautiful, and every day becoming more so under the minute touches of affectionate assiduity. However, in two years there are but 365 + 365 = 730 days, and one of them is past: 730 - 1 = 729.
June 2.—730 - 2 = 728. The only home I have ever known rushed on my first waking thoughts, as one not to be seen for two years. Shall we enjoy it then as now? How many things may happen in two years. What a considerable part they are of the time in which I can hope to enjoy any pleasure from externals. When we meet persons after a long absence, they very often do not seem the same from some change in them, in us, in both. Will it not be the same as to a place? Will not my dear boys, for whose sake I love it, lose their keen relish for its pleasures and its beauties?
June 7.—The Green Fever has not subsided. On opening my eyes I long for the song of the birds, the hush of the trees, the smell of the flowers, the sounds and sights and sense of beauty. I comprehend the calenture, when the sailor, under the heat of a burning sun, leaps from the stifling deck to the green fields he fancies undulating beneath him, and finds no repose but that of death.
SONNETS.
I.
ON THE DEATH OF TWO INFANT SISTERS—TWINS.
July 28, 1823.
Sweet buds of being, ye have passed away
To bloom for ever in a fairer clime,