STANZAS TO OLIVE OATMAN.
Fair Olive! thy historian’s pen declines
Portraying what thy feelings once have been,
Because the language of the world confines
Expression, giving only half we mean;
No reaching from what we have felt or seen:
And it is well. How useless ’tis to gild
Refined gold, or paint the lily’s sheen!
But we can weep when all the heart is fill’d