The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel: Founded on FactFoster, Hannah Webster
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The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel: Founded on Fact
Foster, Hannah Webster
Whitman, Elizabeth, 1752-1788 -- Fiction
Should every wish the heart of friendship knows
Be to your ear conveyed in rustic prose,
Lost in the wonders of your Eastern clime,
Or rapt in vision to some unborn time,
Th' unartful tale might no attention gain;
For Friendship knows not, like the Muse, to feign.
Forgive her, then, if in this weak essay
She tries to emulate thy daring lay,
And give to truth and warm affection's glow
The charms that from the tuneful sisters flow.
On this blest morning's most auspicious rise,
Which finds thee circled with domestic joys,
May thy glad heart its grateful tribute pay
To Him who shaped thy course and smoothed thy way--
That guardian Power, who, to thy merit kind,
Bestowed the bliss most suited to thy mind--
Retirement, friendship, leisure, learned ease,
All that the philosophic mind can please;
All that the Muses love, th' harmonious nine,
Inspire thy lays, and aid the great design.
But more than all the world could else bestow,
All pleasures that from fame or fortune flow,
To fix secure in bliss thy future life,
Heaven crowned thy blessings with a lovely wife--
Wise, gentle, good, with every grace combined
That charms the sense or captivates the mind;
Skilled every soft emotion to improve,
The joy of friendship, and the wish of love;
To soothe the heart which pale Misfortune's train
Invades with grief or agonizing pain;
To point through devious paths the narrow road
That leads the soul to virtue or to God.
O friend! O sister! to my bosom dear
By every tie that binds the soul sincere;
O, while I fondly dwell upon thy name,
Why sinks my soul, unequal to the theme?
But though unskilled thy various worth to praise,
Accept my wishes, and excuse my lays.
May all thy future days, like this, be gay,
And love and fortune blend their kindest ray;
Long in their various gifts mayst thou be blessed,
And late ascend the realms of endless rest.
Among her papers, also, after her decease, was found a pastoral on
"Disappointment," which here follows, evidently written during her
seclusion in Danvers, with this brief and pathetic letter in
stenographic characters:--
"Must I die alone? Shall I never see you more? I know that you will
come; but you will come too late. This is, I fear, my last ability.
Tears fall so fast I know not how to write. Why did you leave me in such
distress? But I will not reproach you. All that was dear I forsook for
you, but do not regret it. May God forgive in both what was amiss. When
I go from here, I will leave you some way to find me. If I die, will you
come and drop a tear over my grave?"
The poem, which continues in the same moving strain, is touching and
tender, and betrays a heart full of refinement and sensibility.
DISAPPOINTMENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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