‘“I could not love thee, sweet, so much,
Loved I not honor more.”’
* * * ‘October 10th, 1840.—I felt singular pleasure
in seeing you quote Hood’s lines on “Melancholy.”
I thought nobody knew and loved his serious poems
except myself, and two or three others, to whom I
imparted them.[1] Do you like, also, the ode to
Autumn, and —
‘“Sigh on, sad heart, for love’s eclipse”?
‘It was a beautiful time when I first read these poems. I was staying in Hallowell, Maine, and could find no books that I liked, except Hood's poems. You know how the town is built, like a terraced garden on the river's bank; I used to go every afternoon to the granite quarry which crowns these terraces, and read till the sunset came casting its last glory on the opposite bank. They were such afternoons as those in September and October, clear, soft, and radiant. Nature held nothing back. ’Tis many years since, and I have never again seen the Kennebec, but remember it as a stream of noble character. It was the first river I ever sailed up, realizing all which that emblem discloses of life. Greater still would the charm have been to sail downward along an unknown stream, seeking not a home, but a ship upon the ocean.’
‘Newbury, Oct. 18, 1840. — It rained, and the day
was pale and sorrowful, the thick-fallen leaves even
- ↑ This was some years before their reprint in this country, it should be noticed.
