Maria. 'Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
His rosy face besoil'd with unwiped tears.— [70]
And what became of him?
Foster-Mother. He went on shipboard
With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth, [75]
Soon after they arriv'd in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seiz'd a boat,
And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis suppos'd, 80
He liv'd and died among the savage men.
1797.
FOOTNOTES:
[182:1] First published in the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads, 1798, and reprinted in the editions of 1800, 1803, and 1805. The 'dramatic fragment' was excluded from the acting version of Remorse, but was printed in an Appendix, p. 75, to the Second Edition of the Play, 1813. It is included in the body of the work in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, and again in 1852, and in the Appendix to Remorse in the editions of 1828, 1829, and 1834. It is omitted from 1844. 'The "Foster-Mother's Tale," (From Mr. C.'s own handwriting)' was published in Cottle's Early Recollections, i. 235.
'The following scene as unfit for the stage was taken from the Tragedy in 1797, and published in the Lyrical Ballads. But this work having been long out of print, and it having been determined, that this with my other poems in that collection (the Nightingale, Love, and the Ancient Mariner) should be omitted in any future edition, I have been advised to reprint it as a Note to the Second Scene of Act the Fourth, p. 55.' App. to Remorse, Ed. 2, 1813. [This note is reprinted in 1828 and 1829, but in 1834 only the first sentence is prefixed to the scene.]
LINENOTES:
[Title]] Foster-Mother's Tale. (Scene—Spain) Cottle, 1837: The, &c. A Narration in Dramatic Blank Verse L. B. 1800. In Remorse, App., 1813 and in 1828, 1829, 1834, the dramatis personae are respectively Teresa and Selma. The fragment opens thus:—Enter Teresa and Selma.
Ter. 'Tis said, he spake of you familiarly
As mine and Alvar's common foster-mother.