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A POETICAL EPISTLE.
TO MRS. RUSH.
ady, I thank you for your letter;
Would that these rhymes it asks were better
Worthy of her who taught
My song, when life was in its June,
To mingle heart with word and tune,
And melody with thought.
Gone are the days of sunny weather
(I quote remembered words), when we
“Revelled in poetry” together;
And frightened leaves from off their tree,
With declamation loud and long,
From epic sage and merry song,
And odes, and madrigals, and sonnets,
Till all the birds within the wood,
And people of the neighborhood
Said we’d “a bee in both our bonnets.”
And he[1] said listening, he the most
Honored and loved, and early lost—
He in whose mind’s brief boyhood hour
Was blended by the marvellous power
