No More Learning

Eternity points in its amaranth bower,
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lower,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower, _15
When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

NOTE:
5. --Bereavement: Song, 1811.


6. --THE DROWNED LOVER.

1.
Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,
Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;
Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,
She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.
I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle, _5
As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;
And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,
'Stay thy boat on the lake,--dearest Henry, I come. '

2.
High swelled in her bosom the throb of affection,
As lightly her form bounded over the lea, _10
And arose in her mind every dear recollection;
'I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee. '
How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,
When sympathy's swell the soft bosom is moving,
And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving, _15
Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!

3.
Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,
And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air;
Oh!
how could fond visions such softness deceive?
Oh! how could false hope rend, a bosom so fair? _20
Thy love's pallid corse the wild surges are laving,
O'er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;
But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,
In eternity's bowers, a seat for thee there.

6. --The Drowned Lover: Song. 1811; The Lake-Storm, Rossetti, 1870.

***


POSTHUMOUS FRAGMENTS OF MARGARET MCHOLSON.

Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted
the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.

[The "Posthumous Fragments", published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in
November, 1810. See "Bibliographical List". ]

ADVERTISEMENT.

The energy and native genius of these Fragments must be the only apology
which the Editor can make for thus intruding them on the public notice.
The first I found with no title, and have left it so. It is intimately
connected with the dearest interests of universal happiness; and much as
we may deplore the fatal and enthusiastic tendency which the ideas of
this poor female had acquired, we cannot fail to pay the tribute of
unequivocal regret to the departed memory of genius, which, had it been
rightly organized, would have made that intellect, which has since
become the victim of frenzy and despair, a most brilliant ornament to
society.