LETTER 52. TO COTTLE
Stowey, Friday Morning (1797).
My dear Cottle.
* * * If you do not like the following verses, or if you do not think them worthy of an edition in which I profess to give nothing but my choicest fish, picked, gutted, and cleaned, please to get some one to write them out and send them, with my compliments to the editor of the "New Monthly Magazine". But if you think as well of them as I do (most probably from parental dotage for my last born) let them immediately follow "The Kiss".
God love you,
S. T. C.
TO AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG WOMAN.
WHOM I HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.
Maiden! that with sullen brow,
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay;
Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May.
Inly gnawing, thy distresses
Mock those starts of wanton glee;
And thy inmost soul confesses
Chaste Affection's majesty.