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ADY, I thank you for your letter; Would that these rhymes it asks were better
 * Worthy of her who taught

My song, when life was in its June, To mingle heart with word and tune,
 * And melody with thought.

Gone are the days of sunny weather
 * (I quote remembered words), when we

“Revelled in poetry” together;
 * And frightened leaves from off their tree,

With declamation loud and long, From epic sage and merry song,
 * And odes, and madrigals, and sonnets,

Till all the birds within the wood, And people of the neighborhood
 * Said we’d “a bee in both our bonnets.”

And he said listening, he the most Honored and loved, and early lost— He in whose mind’s brief boyhood hour Was blended by the marvellous power