Yet thou still art so lovely to me,
I would sooner, my exquisite mother!
Repose in the sunset of thee,
Than bask in the noon of another.
TO MRS. .......
ON SOME CALUMNIES AGAINST HER CHARACTER.
Is not thy mind a gentle mind?
Is not that heart a heart refined?
Hast thou not every gentle grace,
We love in woman's mind and face?
And, oh! art _thou_ a shrine for Sin
To hold her hateful worship in?
No, no, be happy--dry that tear--
Though some thy heart hath harbored near,
May now repay its love with blame;
Though man, who ought to shield thy fame,
Ungenerous man, be first to shun thee;
Though all the world look cold upon thee,
Yet shall thy pureness keep thee still
Unharmed by that surrounding chill;
Like the famed drop, in crystal found,[1]
Floating, while all was frozen round,--
Unchilled unchanging shalt thou be,
Safe in thy own sweet purity.
[1] This alludes to a curious gem, upon which Claudian has left
us some very elaborate epigrams. It was a drop of pure water enclosed
within a piece of crystal. Addison mentions a curiosity of this kind at
Milan; and adds; "It is such a rarity as this that I saw at Vendoeme in
France, which they there pretend is a tear that our Saviour shed over
Lazarus, and was gathered up by an angel, who put it into a little crystal
vial, and made a present of it to Mary Magdalen".
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