MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. To distant shores; and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy, too, And dream of transports she was not to know. The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides, And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food, COWPER. TO MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. BY L. E. L. I PRAY thee, ladye, turn these leaves, Whose lineaments no artist's skill, The outline knows art's fine control, And thou wert his familiar friend,* • Lady Blessington's "Conversations with Lord Byron." R 65 If I can read that face aright, "Tis something more than fair: Ah! not alone the lovely face, The lovely heart is there. The smile that seems to light and win, Amid Ravenna's purple woods, How gentle and how womanly Thy soft mind must have reigned, For chords like his, so finely strung, Beneath that soft Italian sky, How much must thou have heard Thy woman's heart became to thee He must have looked on that sweet face, The mask, the mock, the blind. The instinct of the heart is true. Thy page is open at my side Thy latest one, which tells,* How in a world so seeming fair What hate and falsehood dwells. A dangerous Paradise is ours, "The Victims of Society." |