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What may your pilgrimage have been, Since both of us lost our Eden days, I never rashly tried to glean; And know not if your childhood ways p. 189Were trodden by your maiden feet When, flushed and shy with hope and fear, You went your loitering swain to meet And listen to sounds you loved to hear! But if sometimes your heart was fain Along our honeysuckle lane Again to roam, in gracious flight Your memory would have found delight In wandering there a child again! And if a matron you became, With a matron’s worries and daily strife; The pain and sorrow, the hurt and blame Mixed with pleasure, of being a wife, I know not. But of this am sure, That if with daughters you were blessed, They found your bright example lure, Thro’ ways by wisdom proven best, And sympathetic, generous trust To kindly conduct more than just. If old experience yet holds true, And by a generation’s lapse p. 190Your daughter’s child resembles you, Then by that happy law perhaps Another Nelly may be seen To grace some other village green; As native there as morning dew; Or larks aloft, when lost to view They lift us thro’ the trembling blue To soar with them in ecstasy; Or primroses, whose welcome faces From sunny banks and shady places, Tenderly glimmer in pallid gold Caught as early morning broke, When, dreaming daylight they awoke Enamoured from the moistened mold. And if a Nelly, tho’ changed in name, Her fair endowments will the same Point every grace that charmed before Thro’ unrenowned ancestresses, Then still there beams a joy that blesses The traveller by your cottage door; Who, pleased in after years to trace p. 191Remembrance of your playful face, May linger on your presence while Before him still you turn to smile.

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p. 192NOTE.

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The two portions of “My Beautiful Lady,” entitled “My Beautiful Lady,” and “My Lady in Death,” were written in 1849, and published on the 1st of January, 1850, in “The Germ,” a magazine which ran to only four numbers. “Dawn,” and “My Lady’s Glory,” were written about the same time; but all the other poems were written between 1857 and 1861. The first complete edition appeared in 1863; the second in 1864; and the third in 1866.

“Nelly Dale” was written in 1886.

T. W.

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