The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842) - Gredos ...

The Salamanca Corpus: The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842)
Nor sees one charm, nor hears the smothering sighs;
Sees not the hourly load of comforts brought
By fond affection, watching every thought,
Nor the heart beating with the wish to please,—
Cold, cold Neglect, nor hears, nor feels, nor sees!
“Thus, in the present hour too, oft slides by
The many a charm that might detain the eye;
But just as if from woes we could not part,
We veil the sight, and close shut up the heart;
So I myself would ne’er forget the day
When Ethelinda vowed her heart away.
[31]
Our births were equal, but exalted views
For the fair daughter bade the sire refuse.
O’er seas I roam, in quest of much-priz’d wealth,
Though, after all, the greatest good is health!
Where’er I roam’d, my Ethelind was there,
My soul’s companion join’d me every where;
Whatever scenes entrapped my travelling eye,
My fancied Ethelind stood smiling by,
Her just opinion met my listening ear,
And her remarks on men, and climes, I hear.
This was not absence, or it was a dream,
Which, though unreal, yet would real seem.
Each day the tongue-like pen some story told,
Of growing love, or less increasing gold;
Yet fortune frown d not; and, in lengthening time,
One day I saw that mark’d her to be mine.
Hail! heaven-taught letters, that through years convey
The deathless thought, as if just breath’d to-day!
That gives the converse of an absent friend,
And, for a moment, makes that absence end;
For, while the eager eyes the lines run o’er,
Distance steps back, and drags the chain no more;
For one short moment the dear friends we see
Close by our side, just as they used to be.
Such sweet delusions are not form’d to last,
And Fancy’s visions far too soon are past.
No such delights my heart-wrote lines attend,
They met the hand of a deceitful friend;
Her brother, anxious for a lord’s success,
Thought it no sin to blast my happiness,