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Literary Gazette, 9th February, 1822, Page 89


ORIGINAL POETRY


POETIC SKETCHES.

Sketch Fifth.

"Glad greetings, tender partings, which upstay
The drooping mind of absence." [1]

“May never was the month of love,
    For May is full of flowers;
‘Tis rather April, wet by kind,
    For love is full of showers." [2]

The palms flung down their shadow, and the air
Was rich with breathings of the citron bloom;
All the so radiant children of the south,
The gold and silver jessamines, the rose
In crimson glory, there were gathered—sounds
Of music too from waterfalls, the hymn
By bees sung to the sweet flowers as they fed;
The earth seemed in its infancy, the sky,
The fair blue sky, was glowing as the hopes
Of childish happiness; it was a land
Of blossoming and sunshine.—One is here,
To whom the earth is colourless, the heaven
Clouded and cold: his heart is far away:
The palms have not to him the majesty
Of his own land's green oaks, the roses here
Are not so sweet as those wild ones that grow
In his own valley; he would rather have
One pale blue violet than all the buds
That Indian suns have kist: his heart is full
Of gentle recollections, and those thoughts
Which can but hold communion with themselves,
The heart's best dreaming. When the wanderer
Calls up those tender memories which are
So precious to absence, those dear links
That distance cannot sunder—come there not
Such visionings, young Evelin, o'er thy soul?

  1. Quote from Wordsworth
  2. Quote from Robert Southwell