This page has been validated.
xxxix
Allowed to catch alone some transient view,
Scarce long enough to think the vision true!
O then, while yet some zest of life remains,
While transport yet can swell the beating veins,
While sweet remembrance keeps her wonted seat,
And fancy still retains some genial heat;
When evening bids each busy task be o'er,—
Once let us meet again, to part no more!"
Scarce long enough to think the vision true!
O then, while yet some zest of life remains,
While transport yet can swell the beating veins,
While sweet remembrance keeps her wonted seat,
And fancy still retains some genial heat;
When evening bids each busy task be o'er,—
Once let us meet again, to part no more!"
The evening which was the object of these earnest aspirations had now arrived; and it proved a long, though by no means an unclouded one;—twenty years elapsed before the hand of death sundered this fraternal pair.
A warm attachment to the authors of what has been called the Augustan age of English literature,—on whom her own taste and style were formed,—was observable in the conversation of Mrs. Barbauld, and often in her writings; and she gratified this sentiment by offering to the public, in 1804, a Selection from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian and Freeholder, with a Prelimi-
