In a cottag'd vale She dwells,
Listening to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honour's meeker mien, 10
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And conscious of the past employ
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.
1794.
FOOTNOTES:
[71:2] First published in the Fall of Robespierre, 1795: included (as 'Song', p. 13) in 1796, 1797, 1803, 1828, 1829, and 1834.
LINENOTES:
[Title]] Effusion xxv. 1796.
ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE[72:1]
Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress
Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile
And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while
Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland? [5]
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
When Jealousy with feverous fancies pale
Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?
Faint was that Hope, and rayless!—Yet 'twas fair
And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest: [10]
Thou should'st have lov'd it most, when most opprest,
And nurs'd it with an agony of care,
Even as a mother her sweet infant heir
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!