* * * * *

“TO AUGUSTA.

      “My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
      Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. 
      Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
      No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: 
      Go where I will, to me thou art the same—­
      A loved regret which I would not resign. 
      There yet are two things in my destiny,—­
    A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

      “The first were nothing—­had I still the last,
      It were the haven of my happiness;
      But other claims and other ties thou hast,
      And mine is not the wish to make them less. 
      A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
      Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
      Reversed for him our grandsire’s[125] fate of yore,—­
    He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

      “If my inheritance of storms hath been
      In other elements, and on the rocks
      Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen,
      I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,
      The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
      My errors with defensive paradox;
      I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
    The careful pilot of my proper woe,

      “Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. 
      My whole life was a contest, since the day
      That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d
      The gift,—­a fate, or will that walk’d astray;
      And I at times have found the struggle hard,
      And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: 
      But now I fain would for a time survive,
    If but to see what next can well arrive.

      “Kingdoms and empires in my little day
      I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
      And when I look on this, the petty spray
      Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d
      Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: 
      Something—­I know not what—­does still uphold
      A spirit of slight patience; not in vain,
    Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

      “Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
      Within me,—­or perhaps a cold despair,
      Brought on when ills habitually recur,—­
      Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
      (For even to this may change of soul refer,
      And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
      Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
    The chief companion of a calmer lot.

      “I feel almost at times as I have felt
      In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
      Which do remember me of where I dwelt
      Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
      Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
      My heart with recognition of their looks;
      And even at moments I could think I see
    Some living thing to love—­but none like thee.