Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/73

Rh Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery and a lamb, that hung next the great bay window, with the bright yellow Hshire hair, and eye of watchet hue—so like my Alice! I am persuaded she was a true Elia—Mildred Elia, I take it. From her and from my passion for her for I first learned love from a picture—Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical lines which thou mayest see if haply thou hast never seen them, reader, in the margin. But my Mildred grew not old like the imaginary Helen."

With brotherly pride he sends them to Coleridge: "How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt:—

High-born Helen, round your dwelling

These twenty years I've paced in vain;

Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty

Hath been to glory in his pain.

High-born Helen, proudly telling

Stories of thy cold disdain;

I starve, I die, now you comply,

And I no longer can complain.

These twenty years I've lived on tears,

Dwelling forever on a frown;

On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread;

I perish now you kind are grown.

Can I who loved my beloved,

But for the scorn "was in her eye";

Can I be moved for my beloved,

When she "returns me sigh for sigh"?

In stately pride, by my bed-side

High-born Helen's portrait's hung;

Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays

Are nightly to the portrait sung.