can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy?By all that mind invents or hand prepares;
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse!
The Triad.
Dear girl ...?If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,?Thy nature is not therefore less divine;?Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;?And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,?God being with thee when we know it not.
Sonnet.
I knew a maid,?A young enthusiast ...?Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;?Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste?Or barren, intermeddling subtleties,?Perplex her mind; but wise as women are?When genial circumstance hath favoured them,?She welcomed what was given, and craved no more,?Whate'er the scene presented to her view.?That was the best, to that she was attuned?By her benign simplicity of life,?... God delights?In such a being; for her common thoughts?Are piety, her life is gratitude.
The Prelude.
Sweet girl, a very shower?Of beauty is thy earthly dower!...?Never saw I mien, or face,?In which more plainly I could trace?Benignity and homebred sense?Ripening in perfect innocence.
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about three plays.
To A Highland Girl.
A maiden ...?Lovely as spring's first note ... Pure?As beautiful, and gentle and benign.
A Flower....
Fairest of all flowers was she....
She hath an eye that smiles into all hearts,
Soon would her gentle words make peace.
The Borderers.
Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved?To scorn the declaration,?That sometimes I in thee have loved?My fancy's own creation.
Imagination needs must stir;?Dear Maid, this truth believe,?Minds that have nothing to confer,?Find little to perceive.
Be pleased that Nature made thee fit?To feed my heart's devotion,?By laws to which all forms submit?In sky, air, earth, and ocean.
Poems of the Affections, 16.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
Clearly a superior woman.--That is the way with female intellects when they are good; nothing equals their acuteness, and their rapidity is almost excessive.--Frederick the Great.
Perfection of housekeeping was her clear and speedy attainment in that new scene. Strange how she made the desert blossom for herself and me there; what a fairy palace she had made of that wild moorland home of the poor man! From the baking of a loaf, or the darning of a stocking, up to comporting herself in the highest scenes or most intricate emergencies, all was insight, veracity, graceful success (if you could judge it), fidelity to insight of the fact given.--Reminiscences.
Meek and retiring by the softness of her nature, yet glowing with an ethereal ardour for all that is illustrious and lovely.--_Life of Schiller._
She was of a compassionate nature, and had a loving, patient, and noble heart; prudent she was; the skilfulest and thriftiest of financiers; could well keep silence, too, and with a gentle stoicism endure much small unreason.--Life of Schiller.
Her life was busy and earnest; she was help-mate, not in name only, to an ever-busy man.--Frederick the Great.
Peculiar among all dames and damosels, glanced Blumine, there in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden! whom he bent to, in body and in soul; yet scarcely dared look at, for the presence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment. --Sartor Resartus.
A bright airy lady; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled to speak, skilled to hold her tongue.--_Frederick the Great._
Far and wide was the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices; from all which vague colourings of Rumour, from the censures no less than from the praises, had our friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and blooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere white Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too little naphtha-fire.--Sartor Resartus.
A tall, rather thin figure; a face pale, intelligent, and penetrating; nose fine, rather large, and decisively Roman; pair of bright, not soft, but sharp and small black eyes, with a cold smile as of enquiry in them; fine brow; fine chin; thin lips--lips always gently shut, as if till the enquiry were completed, and the time came for something of royal speech upon it. She had a slight accent, but spoke--Dr. Hugh Blair could not have picked a hole in it--and you might have printed every word, so queen-like, gentle, soothing, measured, prettily royal toward subjects whom she wished to love her. The voice was modulated, low, not inharmonious; yet there was something of metallic in it, akin to that smile in the eyes. One durst not quite love this high personage as she wished to be loved! Her very dress was notable; always the same, and in a fashion of its own;--and must have required daily the fastening of sixty or eighty pins.--Reminiscences.
She had a pleasant, attractive physiognomy; which may be considered better than strict beauty.--Frederick the Great.
That light, yet so stately form; those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and sun-light played over earnest deeps.... He ventured to address
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