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Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Notes on the Art Treasures at Penicuik House Midlothian

John Stuart Mill · en
“I beg leave to add that it is sixty-eight years since I lived
    in Carlisle with my Father and mother. Lady Clark will of
    course have no recollection of my _Boyish adoration_, but to
    recall it, if possible, to her memory, I would wish her to
    know that it is Chas. Morris, son of Col. Morris, of the 17th
    Regt., who lived with my mother at Carlisle, and with whom Lady
    Clark and the Dacre Family were acquainted.”

Then follows the brave old jingle of rhyme which the ever-faithful
lover had made in praise of his lady:—

    “Though years have spread around my Head
      The sober Veil of Reason,
    To close in Night sweet Fancy’s light,
      My Heart rejects as Treason;
    A spark there lies, still fann’d by Sighs,
      Ordained by Beauty’s maker,
    And fix’d by Fate, burns yet, tho’ late,
      For lovely Molly Dacre.

    Oh! while I miss the days of Bliss
      I pass’d in rapture gazing,
    The Dream impress’d still charms my breast
      Which Fancy ever raising.
    Tho’ much I meet in Life is sweet,
      My Soul can ne’er forsake her,
    And all I feel, still bears the Seal
      Of lovely Molly Dacre!

    Whene’er her course in chaise or horse
      Conveyed her to our city,
    How did I gaze, in bliss’d amaze
      To catch her smile of pity;
    And round her door the night I wore,
      Still mute as any Quaker,
    With hope-fed Zeal, one glance to steal
      From lovely Molly Dacre.

    When rumour dear proclaimed her near,
      Her charms a crowd amazing,
    How would I start with panting Heart
      To catch her eye when passing.
    When home she turned, I ran, I burned
      O’er many a distant Acre,
    To hope by chance one parting glance
      From lovely Molly Dacre.

    I’ve often thought the happy lot
      Of Health and Spirits lent me,
    Is deem’d as due to faith so true,
      And thus by Fate is sent me.
    While here she be there’s life for me,
      And when high Heaven shall take her,
    Alike last breath, I’ll ask of Death
      To follow Molly Dacre.

            M.”

Surely it was with true significance that Rosemary Dacre’s seal—the
seal which always descends to her name-child in the house of
Penicuik—was engraved with the sign of a single star, shedding a
benign and steadfast light over a pathless vastitude of air and a
fluctuating waste of sea; for the Lady’s memory seems to have shone
with an ideal light through many human lives.


VIII.