[“The ‘Thoughts’ were published in the New Monthly Magazine for March 1835. They are intensely individual. One of them, on Retzsch’s design of the Angel of Death, was suggested by an impressive description in Mrs Jameson’s ‘Visits and Sketches.’ In another, she speculates earnestly and reverently upon the direction of the flight of the spirit when the soul and body shall part; in others again, she recurs tenderly to the haunts and pleasures of childhood, which had of late been present to her memory with more than usual force and freshness. To these the following sonnet refers, dated 21st May 1834, which, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been published.”—Chorley’s Memorials of Mrs Hemans, p. 339-40.]
Oh! what a joy to feel that, in my breast,
The founts of childhood’s vernal fancies lay
Still pure, though heavily and long repress’d
By early-blighted leaves, which o’er their way
Dark summer-storms had heaped. But free, glad play
Once more was given them: to the sunshine’s glow,
And the sweet wood-song’s penetrating flow,
And to the wandering primrose-breath of May,
And the rich hawthorn-odours, forth they sprung.