Alas!
How light a cause may move
Dissention
between hearts that love!
Hearts
that the world in vain have tried,
And
sorrow but more closely tied;
That
stood the storms where waves were rough,
Yet
in a sunny hour fall off.
Like
ships that have gone down at sea,
When
heaven was all tranquility!
A
something, light as air—a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken—
Oh!
love that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch, like this has shaken.
And
ruder words will soon rush in
To
spread the breach that words begin;
And
eyes forget the gentle ray
They
wore in courtship’s smiling day;
And
voices lose the tone that shed
A
tenderness ‘round all they said.
‘Til
fast declining, one by one
The
sweetnesses of love are gone
And
hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like
broken clouds, or like a stream,
That
smiling, left the mountain’s brow,
As
though its waters ne’er could sever
Yet,
e’er it reach the plains below,
Breaks
into floods that part forever!
Oh
you that have the charge of love,
Keep
him in rosy bondage bound
As
in the fields of bliss above
He
sits with flowerets fetter’d round;
Loose
not a tie that round him clings,
Nor
once let him use his wings;
For
even an hour, a minutes flight
Will
rob the plumes of half their light.
Like
that celestial bird, whose nest
Is
found beneath far Eastern skies.
Whose
wings, though radiant, when at rest
Lose
all their glory when he flies!
Some
difference of this dangerous kind
By
which, though light, the links that bind
The
fondest hearts may soon be riven;
Some
shadow in love’s summer heaven
Which
though a fleecy speck at first
May
yet in awful thunder burst.
Lalla
Rookh.
[full
title: “Lalla Rookh—the Light of the Harem”, by Thomas Moore]
C.
McEwen New London May 18th 1833
[Charlotte
McEwen became MET’s sister-in–law
by
marrying Cortland Lucas Latimer, John’s brother]
Since
trifles make the sum of human things
And
half our misery from our foibles springs,
Since
life’s best joys consist in peace and ease,
And
few e’er serve or save, but all can please;
Oh!
let the ungentle spirit learn from thence
A
small unkindness is a great offence
Large
bounties to bestow we wish in vain!
But
all shun the guilt of giving pain;
To
bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth
With
power to grace them, or to crown with health
Our
little lot denies, but heaven decreed
To
all the gift of ministering to need
The
gentle offices of patient love
Beyond
all flattery and all price above
The
mild forbearance of another’s fault:
The
taunting word suppressed as soon as thought
On
these Heaven bade the sweets of life depend
And
crushed ill-fortune when it made a friend
A solitary blessing few can find
Our
joys with those we love are intertwined
And
he whose wakeful tenderness removes
The
obstructing thorn that wounds the friend belov’d
Smooths
not another’s rugged path alone
But
scatters roses to adorn his own
Small
slights, neglect, contempt unmixed with hate
Make
up in number what they won’t in weight
These
and a thousand griefs minute as these
Corrode
one’s comforts and destroys one’s peace
Hannah
More
Few
bring back at eve,
Immaculate
the manners of the morn,
Something
we thought is blotted; we resolved
Is
shaken; we removed, returns again!
Peace
be around thee
C.L.
Latimer
[attributing
the above to Hannah More is misleading—
as written, it appears to be a reconstruction from memory of a somewhat longer and differently ordered section of the long poem “Sensibility, an Epistle to the Honorable Mrs. Boscawen”]