th-pierced book,
Feel'st a sharp and sudden woe
For visions vanished long ago!
And then thou think'st how time has fled
Over thy unsilvered head,
Snatching many a fellow mind
Away, and leaving--what?--behind!
Nought, alas! save joy and pain
Mingled ever, like a strain
Of music where the discords vie
With the truer harmony.
So, perhaps, with thee the vein
Is sullied ever,--so the chain
Of habits and affections old,
Like a weight of solid gold,
Presseth on thy gentle breast,
Till sorrow rob thee of thy rest.

Ay: so't must be!--Ev'n I, (whose lot
The fairy Love so long forgot,)
Seated beside this Sherris wine,
And near to books and shapes divine,
Which poets, and the painters past
Have wrought in lines that aye shall last,--
Ev'n I, with Shakspeare's self beside me,
And one whose tender talk can guide me
Through fears, and pains, and troublous themes,
Whose smile doth fall upon my dreams
Like sunshine on a stormy sea,--
Want _something_--when I think of thee!

LIST OF LETTERS

ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED

Aders, Charles, to Jan. 8, 1823
Ainsworth, W. Harrison, to May 7, 1822
Dec. 9, 1823
Dec. 29, --
Aitken, J., to July 5, 1825
Allsop, Thomas, to July 13, 1820
? 1821
? --
March 30, --
Oct. 21, --
July, 1823
Sept. 6, --
Sept. 9, --
Sept. 10, --
Sept. --
? Oct. --
Jan. 17, 1825
Sept. 9, --