ON MISS JESSY LEWARS.
[The constancy of her attendance on the poet’s sick-bed and anxiety of mind brought a slight illness upon Jessy Lewars. “You must not die yet,” said the poet: “give me that goblet, and I shall prepare you for the worst.” He traced these lines with his diamond, and said, “That will be a companion to ‘The Toast.’”]
Say, sages, what’s the charm on earth
Can turn Death’s dart aside?
It is not purity and worth,
Else Jessy had not died.
R. B.
LXXI.
ON THE
RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS.
[A little repose brought health to the young lady. “I knew you would not die,” observed the poet, with a smile: “there is a poetic reason for your recovery;” he wrote, and with a feeble hand, the following lines.]
But rarely seen since Nature’s birth,
The natives of the sky;
Yet still one seraph’s left on earth,
For Jessy did not die.