FARE thee well! and if for ever,

Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

(1) [It was about the middle of April that his two celebrated copies of verses, "Fare thee well," and "A Sketch," made their appearance in the newspapers; and while the latter poem was generally, and, it must be owned, justly condemned, as a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, whose situation ought to have placed her as much beneath his satire, as the undignified mode of his attack certainly raised her above it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were a good deal more divided. To many it appeared a strain of true conjugal tenderness, - - a kind of appeal which no woman with a heart could resist; while, by others, on the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in the subject. To this latter opinion I confess my own to have, at first, strongly inclined; and suspicious as I could

Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !
Then thou would'st at last discover

'Twas not well to spurn

it so.

Though the world for this commend thee—
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:

not help thinking the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned their publication appeared to me even still more questionable. On reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in the Memoranda, I found that on both points I had, in common with a large portion of the public, done him injustice. He there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in his study, these stanzas were produced,— the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, from that account, to have been from any wish or intention of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the public eye. — MOORE.]

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;

Both shall live, but

every morrow Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou would solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"
Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.

All my

All

faults perchance thou knowest,

my madness none can know ; All my hopes, where'er thou goest, Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow,

Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,

Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 'tis done - all words are idle

Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.—

Fare thee well! - thus disunited,

Torn from every nearer tie,

Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

March 17. 1816.