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My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays

Morton, Sarah Wentworth (1759-1846)

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My Mind AND ITS THOUGHTS, IN SKETCHES, FRAGMENTS, AND ESSAYS;

LINES TO POVERTY.

TO GEORGE HENRY APTHORP.

PRAYER TO PATIENCE.

CHARACTER FROM LIFE.

MAUDLA.

LINES TO JOHN C. WARREN, M. D. OF BOSTON, MASS.

STANZAS TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

INSCRIPTIONS. Intended for a little Island upon the Schuylkill, belonging to the proprietor of the Woodlands; at whose request the following were hastily written.

SONG OF THE RUNIC BARD.

SECOND ODE TO TIME.

DISINTERESTEDNESS,

TO LEWIS HERVEY, ESQ.

INJUNCTION TO D. W. L.

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CHARACTERISTIC SONGS.

SUCCESSFUL LOVER.

TO A BEAUTIFUL INFANT.

LINES TO A LADY, DANCING.

LINES IMPROMPTU,

TRIBUTARY LINES

TO THE HON. JOHN JAY.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN JAY,

SONNET, TO MAJOR GENERAL LINCOLN.

SONNET TO THE FULL SUMMER MOON.

SONNET TO ADVERSITY.

STANZAS TO AARON BURR.

LINES TO MRS. MONTGOMERY.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

CHARACTERISTIC PORTRAIT.

THE STAR GAZER.

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL.

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DEDICATION HYMN.

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MONODIES, Elegies, and Stanzas.

AUX MANES DE JULIE.

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61

MAUDLA.

THE CARELESS SINNER TURNED PERSECUTING SAINT, PARTLY IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

When Maud was young, her deeds were bad,
Of aged Maud the ways are sad;
That sin which charmed her earlier eyes,
Now from her hideous figure flies,
And since that Satan tempts no more,
She to her God unlocks the door;
As if what tophet loathes and leaves,
Heaven and its angel host receives,
And ugliest sin were welcome there,
Where all is good, and all is fair;
Thus to the rancorous heart is given
The hope of blessedness and heaven,
Even as the cankering reptiles come,
To where the peach unfolds its bloom:
And from the veriest trash may rise,
The bright carnation's fragrant dyes.

The character from the French prose, and that which precedes it, were a task imposed on the author at the city of Washington, unappropriate, and certainly without the least intended personality.