FRAGMENTS. Fifth Series.
Literary Gazette, 31st January, 1824, Page 74
REMEMBRANCE.[1]
That Portrait! aye, it was a lovely face.
Those eyes, like violets on which the sun
Has looked as favourites; the long dark lash,
Sweet twilight to their playfulness; that brow,
Open as morning, white as Indian pearl,
Shadowed by those light clouds of pale brown hair,
Braided by lilies pure as she herself:—
It looks just what she was, all youth, all life,
All girlish innocence and happiness.
We were companions in our youth: we loved
With that first love life never quite forgets.
We parted,—parted too without a hope!
Hope waits on Fortune. After many years
I saw my early idol once again:
How changed, yet still how very beautiful!
Pride sat upon her brow, a reckless scorn
Mingled with bitterness in each light word,
And sorrow, ill concealed, seemed at her heart:
Yet had she wedded, and won rank and wealth,
But once we met; how deep the tenderness
That softened her so lovely countenance,
When, with a voice half music and half sorrow,
She gently said, "The seared heart doth not break."
- ↑ Signature after later poem
