Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/26

 MARK TWAIN

&quot; responding like a tremulous instrument to every breath of passion or of sentiment,&quot; had his chance here. It took only four days for Cornelia s attrac tions to begin to dim Harriet s. Shelley arrived on the 2yth of July; on the 3ist he wrote a sonnet to Harriet in which &quot;one detects already the little rift in the lover s lute which had seemed to be healed or never to have gaped at all when the later and happier sonnet to lanthe was written&quot; in Septem ber, we remember:

Exhibit D EVENING. TO HARRIET

O them bright Sun! Beneath the dark blue line

Of western distance that sublime descendest,

And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline,

Thy million hues to every vapor lendest,

And over cobweb, lawn, and grove, and stream

Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light,

Till calm Earth, with the parting splendor bright,

Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream ;

What gazer now with astronomic eye

Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere?

Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he fly

The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear,

And turning senseless from thy warm caress

Pick flaws in our close- woven happiness.

I cannot find the &quot;rift&quot;; still it may be there. What the poem seems to say is, that a person would be coldly ungrateful who could consent to count and consider little spots and flaws in such a warm, great, satisfying sun as Harriet is. It is a &quot;little rift which had seemed to be healed, or never to have gaped at all.&quot; That is, &quot;one detects&quot; a little rift which per-

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