The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vignettes in Verse, by Matilda Betham

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Title: Vignettes in Verse

Author: Matilda Betham

Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11194]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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Vignettes:

IN VERSE.

BY MATILDA BETHAM.

1818.

THESE VERSES ARE INSCRIBED
TO
LADY BETHAM,
AS A TRIBUTE OF SINCERE RESPECT
FOR HER
AMIABLE QUALITIES.

ADVERTISEMENT.

* * * * *

As far as the seventy-fourth page, these Poems have been printed about
two years; during which many things happened likely to prevent their
ever appearing. The time, however, is now come, and I have to-day found
the remainder, up to where the lines end with

"Its unpolluted birthright."

On reading the whole over, they struck me with much surprise, as they
appear in a singular manner prophetic. I wrote them with a general, and
somewhat undefined view; and they now take the aspect of speaking on
what has since happened to myself--a long seclusion, during which I was
bereft of the common means of study, having given rise to one that has
turned out far more important than I at first imagined, and which I have
continued since, to the exclusion of every other pursuit.

_Stonkam, May 10th_, 1818.

Vignettes.

I.

If writing Journals were my task,
From cottagers to kings--
A little book I'd only ask,
And fill it full of wings!

Each pair should represent a day:
On some the sun should rise,
While others bent their mournful way
Through cold and cloudy skies.

And here I would the light'ning bring
With threatening, forked glare;
And there the hallowed rainbow fling
Across the troubled air.

Some faint and wearily should glide
Their broken flight along--
While some high in the air should ride
Dilated, bold, and strong.

Some agitated and adrift,
Against their will should rove;
Some, steering forward, sure and swift,
Should scarcely seem to move--

While others, happiest of their kind!
Should