"After the departure of this curious couple, his guests told their host he had been very unmerciful. 'I chose,' replied he, 'to avenge the cause of the little man, whose nothingness was so ostentatiously displayed by his lady-wife. Her vanity has had a smart emetic. If it abates the symptoms, she will have reason to thank her physician who administered without hope of a fee.'"[148]
"In the spring of 1778 the children of Colonel and Mrs. Pole of Radburn, in Derbyshire, had been injured by a dangerous quantity of the cicuta, injudiciously administered to them in the hooping-cough by a physician of the neighbourhood. Mrs. Pole brought them to the house of Dr. Darwin in Lichfield, remaining with them there a few weeks, till by his art the poison was expelled from their constitutions and their health restored.
"Mrs. Pole was then in the full bloom of her youth and beauty. Agreeable features; the glow of health; a fine form, tall and graceful; playful sprightliness of manner; a benevolent heart, and maternal affection, in all its unwearied cares and touching tenderness, contributed to inspire Dr. Darwin's admiration, and to secure his esteem."[149]
"In the autumn of this year" (1778) "Mrs. Pole of Radburn was taken ill; her disorder a violent fever. Dr. Darwin was called in, and never perhaps since the death of Mrs. Darwin, prescribed with such deep anxiety. Not being requested to continue in the house during the ensuing night, which he apprehended might prove critical, he passed the remaining hours till day-dawn beneath a tree opposite her apartment, watching the passing and repassing lights in the chamber. During the period in which a life so passionately valued was in danger, he paraphrased Petrarch's celebrated sonnet, narrating a dream whose prophecy was accomplished by the death of Laura. It took place the night on which the vision arose amid his slumber. Dr. Darwin extended the thought of that sonnet into the following elegy:—
"Dread dream, that, hovering in the midnight air,
Clasp'd with thy dusky wing my aching head,
While to imagination's startled ear
Toll'd the slow bell, for bright Eliza dead.
"Stretched on her sable bier, the grave beside,
A snow-white shroud her breathless bosom bound,
O'er her wan brow the mimic lace was tied,
And loves and virtues hung their garlands round.
"From those cold lips did softest accents flow?
Round that pale mouth did sweetest dimples play?
On this dull cheek the rose of beauty blow,
And those dim eyes diffuse celestial day?
"Did this cold hand, unasking Want relieve,
Or wake the lyre to every rapturous sound?
How sad for other's woe this breast would heave!
How light this heart for other's transport bound!
"Beats not the bell again?—Heavens, do I wake?
Why heave my sighs, why gush my tears anew?
Unreal forms my trembling doubts mistake,
And frantic sorrow fears the vision true.
"Dreams to Eliza bend thy airy flight,
Go, tell my charmer all my tender fears,
How love's fond woes alarm the silent night,
And steep my pillow in unpitied tears."