Her sufferings, when alleviated best,
Were most acute: and I could best perform
That sacred task. I wished to lengthen out,--
By consecrating to her every moment,--
Her being to myself! etc."
"Could I leave her?--
I might have seen her,--such was D'Ormond's plea--
Each day. But who her evening hours could cheer?
Her long and solitary evening hours?--
Talk her, or haply sing her, to her sleep?
Read to her? Smooth her pillow? Lastly make
Morning seem morning with a daughter's welcome?
For morning's light ne'er visited her eyes!--
Well! I refused to quit her! D'Ormond grew
Absent, reserved, nay splenetic and petulant!
He left the Province, nor has he once sent
A kind enquiry so t' alleviate
His heavy absence."
"Beritola" is Italian in form, as much as Wieland's "Oberon",
but the spirit is that of the Englishman, Charles Lloyd; it contains the
same vivid descriptions of mental suffering, the same reflective display
of the lover's passion, the same sentiments of deep domestic tenderness,
uttered as from the heart and with a special air of reality, as "The
Duke D'Ormond" and the author's productions in general. The
versification is rather better than that of his earlier poems, but the
want of ease and harmony in the flow of the verse is a prevailing defect
in Mr. Lloyd's poetry, and often makes it appear prosaic, even where the
thought is not so.
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