I.
TO A FRIEND.
This sonnet, and the two following, my earliest attempts at that
form of versification, were addressed to R. S. Jameson, Esq., on
occasion of meeting him in London after a separation of some years.
He was the favourite companion of my boyhood, the active friend
and sincere counsellor of my youth. “Though seas between us
broad ha' roll'd” since we “travell'd side by side” last, I trust the
sight of this little volume will give rise to recollections that will
make him ten years younger. He is now Judge Advocate at
Dominica, and husband of Mrs. Jameson, authoress of the “Diary
of an Ennuyée,” “Loves of the Poets,” and other agreeable productions.
When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
The peace that sleeps upon the dewy hills.
Wordsworth's Song at the feast of Brougham Castle.
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doating, ask'd not why it doated,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find, how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature's treasure,
Of that fair Beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.
