With execrations from her kneeling child.

Start not! your angel from her knee rose mild,
Fear'd that she should not long the scene outlive,
Yet bade ev'n you th' unnatural one forgive.

Till then her ailment had been slight, or none;
But fast she droop'd, and fatal pains came on:
Foreseeing their event, she dictated

And sign'd these words for you." The letter said

"THEODRIC, this is destiny above

Our power to baffle; bear it then, my love!
Rave not to learn the usage I have borne,

For one true sister left me not forlorn ;

And though you 're absent in another land,
Sent from me by my own well-meant command,

Your soul, I know, as firm is knit to mine suni 167

As these clasp'd hands in blessing you now joini Shape not imagined horrors in my fate

Ev'n now my sufferings are not very great;

And when your grief's first transports shall subside,

I call upon your strength of soul and pride 10′′

Το

pay my memory, if 'tis worth the debt, Love's glorying tribute-not forlorn regret: I charge my name with power to conjure up Reflection's balmy, not its bitter cup.

My pard'ning angel, at the gates of Heaven,
Shall look not more regard than you have given

To me; and our life's union has been clad

In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e'er had.

Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast?

Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past?

A

No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast,

There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest;

And let contentment on your spirit shine,

As if its peace were still a part of mine:

For if you war not proudly with your pain,
For you I shall have worse than lived in vain.
But I conjure your manliness to bear

My loss with noble spirit-not despair :

I ask you by our love to promise this,

And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss,The latest from my living lips for yours."—

Words that will solace him while life endures:

For though his spirit from affliction's surge

Could ne'er to life, as life had been, emerge,

Yet still that mind whose harmony elate
Rang sweetness, ev'n beneath the crush of fate,-
That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that soften'd them, or lights that graced,
That soul's example could not but dispense

A portion of its own bless'd influence;

Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway

Which Fortune cannot give, nor take away:

And though he mourn'd her long, 'twas with such woe, As if her spirit watch'd him still below.

NOTES

ΤΟ

THEODRIC.

1