Part 61 (1/2)

78. *_The Widow on Windermere Side_. [x.x.xIV.]

The facts recorded in this Poem were given me and the character of the person described by my highly esteemed friend the Rev. R.P. Graves, who has long officiated as Curate at Bowness, to the great benefit of the parish and neighbourhood. The individual was well known to him. She died before these Verses were composed. It is scarcely worth while to notice that the stanzas are written in the sonnet-form; which was adopted when I thought the matter might be included in 28 lines.

79. _The Armenian Lady's Love_. [x.x.xIV.]

The subject of the following poem is from the 'Orlandus' of the author's friend, Kenelm Henry Digby: and the liberty is taken of inscribing it to him as an acknowledgment, however unworthy, of pleasure and instruction derived from his numerous and valuable writings, ill.u.s.trative of the piety and chivalry of the olden time. *Rydal Mount, 1830.

80. _Percy's 'Reliques'_ (foot-note on 1. 2).

'You have heard ”a Spanish Lady How she wooed an English man.”'

See in Percy's _Reliques_ that fine old ballad, 'The Spanish Lady's Love'; from which Poem the form of stanza, as suitable to dialogue, is adopted.

81. *_Loving and Liking_. [x.x.xV.]

By my Sister. Rydal Mount, 1832. It arose, I believe, out of a casual expression of one of Mr. Swinburne's children.

82. *_Farewell Lines_. [x.x.xVI.]

These Lines were designed as a farewell to Charles Lamb and his Sister, who had retired from the throngs of London to comparative solitude in the village of Enfield, Herts, [_sic._]

83. (1) _The Redbreast_.

Lines 45-6.

'Of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John Blessing the bed she lies upon.'

The words--

'Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on,'

are part of a child's prayer still in general use through the northern counties.

84. *(2)

Rydal Mount, 1834. Our cats having been banished the house, it was soon frequented by Red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Two or three of them, when the window was open, would come in, particularly when Mary was breakfasting alone, and hop about the table picking up the crumbs. My Sister being then confined to her room by sickness, as, dear creature, she still is, had one that, without being caged, took up its abode with her, and at night used to perch upon a nail from which a picture had hung. It used to sing and fan her face with its wings in a manner that was very touching. [In pencil--- But who was the pale-faced child?]

85. *_Her Eyes are wild_. [x.x.xVIII.]

Alfoxden, 1798. The subject was reported to me by a lady of Bristol, who had seen the poor creature.