The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 4

that bled.
'O yes! like the last breath of evening sighing,
Sweep thy cold hand the silent strings along,
Flash like the lamp
beside the hero dying,
Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.'
To Mr. William Le Fanu we are further
indebted for the
accompanying specimens of his
brother's serious and humorous
powers in verse,
written when he was quite a lad, as valentines
to a
Miss G. K.:
'Life were too long for me to bear
If banished from thy view;
Life were too short, a thousand year,
If
life were passed with you.
'Wise men have said "Man's lot on earth
Is grief and melancholy,"
But where thou art, there joyous mirth

Proves all their wisdom folly.
'If fate withhold thy love from me,
All else in vain were given;
Heaven were imperfect wanting thee,

And with thee earth were heaven.'

A few days after, he sent the following sequel:
'My dear good Madam,
You can't think how very sad I'm.
I sent you,
or I mistake myself foully,
A very excellent imitation of the poet
Cowley,
Containing three very fair stanzas,
Which number
Longinus, a very critical man, says,
And Aristotle, who was a critic
ten times more caustic,
To a nicety fits a valentine or an acrostic.

And yet for all my pains to this moving epistle,
I have got no answer,
so I suppose I may go whistle.
Perhaps you'd have preferred that like
an old monk I had pattered on
In the style and after the manner of the
unfortunate Chatterton; Or that, unlike my reverend daddy's son,
I
had attempted the classicalities of the dull, though immortal Addison.

I can't endure this silence another week;
What shall I do in order to
make you speak?
Shall I give you a trope
In the manner of Pope,
Or hammer my brains like an old smith
To get out something like
Goldsmith?
Or shall I aspire on
To tune my poetic lyre on
The
same key touched by Byron,
And laying my hand its wire on,
With
its music your soul set fire on
By themes you ne'er could tire on?
Or say,
I pray,
Would a lay
Like Gay
Be more in your way?
I leave it to you,
Which am I to do?
It plain on the surface is
That
any metamorphosis,
To affect your study
You may work on my
soul or body.
Your frown or your smile makes me Savage or Gay
In
action, as well as in song;
And if 'tis decreed I at length become Gray,

Express but the word and I'm Young;
And if in the Church I should
ever aspire
With friars and abbots to cope,
By a nod, if you please,
you can make me a Prior--
By a word you render me Pope.
If you'd
eat, I'm a Crab; if you'd cut, I'm your Steel,
As sharp as you'd get

from the cutler;
I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel,

And your livery carry, as Butler.
I'll ever rest your debtor
If you'll answer my first letter;
Or must, alas, eternity
Witness your taciturnity?
Speak--and oh! speak quickly
Or else I shall grow sickly,
And pine,
And whine,
And grow yellow and brown
As e'er was mahogany,
And lie me down