Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume II/The First Doubt

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST DOUBT.

Youth, love, and rank, and wealth—all these combined,
Can these be wretched? Mystery of the mind,
Whose happiness is in itself; but still
Has not that happiness at its own will.
She felt too wretched with the sudden fear—
Had she such lovely rival, and so near?
Ay, bitterest of the bitter this worst pain,
To know love's offering has been in vain;
Rejected, scorn'd, and trampled under foot,
Its bloom and leaves destroyed, but not its root.
"He loves me not!"—no other words nor sound
An echo in the lady's bosom found:
It was a wretchedness too great to bear,
She sank before the presence of despair!

In Blanchard

Adapted from The Rose in The Golden Violet