474, REMNANTS OF TIME. Methinks Í should meet her in some of her walks, in some of her family cares or innocent amusements I should see her face, methinks, -I should hear her voice and exchange a tender word or two Ali Coolish rovings of a distressed and dis- quieted fancy ! Every 'room is empty and silent; closets, par- lours, chambers, all empty, all silent; and that very silence and emptiness proclaim My sorrows : even emptiness and deep silence join to confess the painful loss. Shall I try then to put her quite out of my thought, since she will come no more within the reach of my senses ? Shall I loosen the fair picture and drop it from my heart, since the fairer original is for ever gone ? Go, then, fair picture, go from my bosom, and appear to my soul no more. Hard word ! But it must be done : Go, depart thou dearest form ; thou most lovely of images, go from my heart : thy presence is now toe painful in that tender part of me. O unhappy word ! 'Thy presence painful ? A dismal change indeed! When thou wert wont to arise and shew thyself there, graces and joys were wont to arise and show themselves: Graces and joys went always with her, nor did her image ever appear without them, till that dark and bitter day that spread the veil of death over her ; But her image drest in that gloomy veil bath lost all the attendant joys and graces. Let her picture vanish from my soul then, since it has lost those endearingattendants : Let it vanish away into forgetful- ness, for death has robbed it of every grace and every joy. -Yet stay a little there, tempting image, let me once more survey thee : Stay a little moment, and let me take one last glance. One solemn farewel. Is there not something in the re- semblance of her too lovely still to have it quite banished froth my heart ? Can I set niy soul at work to try to forget her ? Can I deal so Unkindly with one who would never have forgotten me ? Can my soul live without her image on it ? Is it not stall-11.A there too deep ever to be etläced ? 'Methinks I feel all my heart- strings wrapt around her, and grow so fast to that dear picture in toy fancy, they seem to be rooted there. To be divided from it is to die. Why should I then pursue so vain and fruitless an attempt ? What ! forget myself ? forget my life ? No ; it cannot be ; nor can I bear to think of such a rude and cruel treatment of an image so much deserving and so much beloved. Neither passion nor reason permits me to forget her, nor is it within my power. She is present almost to all my thoughts : She is with me in all my motions ; grief has ar- rows with her name upon them, that stick as fast and as deep'as those of love ; they cleave to my vitals wheresoever I go but with a quicker sensation and a keener pain. Alas it is love and grief together that lave shot all their arrows into my heart, and filled every vein with acute anguish and long distress.
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