My joys ascend above the earth,
My steps retrace the path they trod,
My heart be fixed alone on God!"
While still young she burned most of her prose and poetic compositions, partly because she was so often forced to read them aloud to company, and very little from those years remains.
The following short poem may be as interesting as any, as her early wish here expressed was so perfectly fulfilled in the character of her accepted life-companion:
"What! shall a face, then, win my heart,
Mere symmetry of form?
Such thrilling raptures this impart
With love my bosom warm?
As well might ocean's billow heave