At length news came--how Arthur Wildbent had So kindly driven her along the strand; And air-improv'd, it made us all so glad. That last reunion, while the Melrose Band Discoursed sweet music, she had been less sad; That once she gam'd croquet with cheerful hand, And beat--but beat old Melancholy better, And hence she boasted of it in her letter.
She frequent made the balmy ev'ning drive Adown the beach, so like a sanded floor; Where white-capp'd waves, that seem'd almost alive, Did chase each other to the shining shore, Buzzing like restless bees within the hive; Or, like the porpoise, rolling by the score, Tho' gathering nothing in their briny splash, Except the wat'ry pearls to shore they dash.
'Tis true, she always miss'd good Charley when, The ev'ning throngs were wont to congregate-- The greatest press was on her spirits then-- Howe'er they whirl'd in dance, or stood, or sat, Not one amid the gallant crowd of men, Could for _his_ absence ever compensate, Unless it might be Lewis--who to-day Reminded her of _him_ who'd pass'd away.
Life had its pleasures, beauty had the world; Tho' fewest of them had been brought to bear Upon a destiny like hers, so furl'd; Scarce naught of either could be painted there; All romance so remotely had been hurl'd, She lik'd some work of lonely quiet, where By somber daylight, or by flick'ring taper, Her inburst feelings she could note on paper.
Life's _new_ sensations are but few and precious-- Thus speaks some writer of some wondrous cave; It may be Mammoth, with its caverns spacious; Whose floors, obliv'ous, Leth'an waters lave; And when we wander thro' them, strange refresh us; Most surely do, if we but catch and save, For rarest of all rare delicious dishes, A string full of the tiny eyeless fishes.
But where find we in life, sensations new? Such as have never yet been told, we mean. Of Such, me thinks indeed, the number's few; And may not reach one even in a dream. 'Tis true, we often all the _old_ renew, Which to one's own sensations new may seem; And yet they but repeat--so we believe-- All those once told by Adam to his Eve.
Yes, so far told, as then it could be done, In the beginning time of this world's ways-- Thro' which their course to pick, they'd just begun-- But not express'd in such poetic lays, As down the rippling tide of language run The thought and feeling of the later days; And more's the pity--since their employment Seems but a very circumscribed enjoyment.