Note F — MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.
Reading edition
Mrs. Gillman gave me also the following sonnet. I believe it never to have been published; but although she requested I "would not have copies of it made to give away," I presume the prohibition cannot now be binding, after a lapse of thirty years since I received it. The poet, he who wrote the sonnet, and the admirable woman to whom it was addressed, have long since met.
"And thou art gone, most loved, most honored friend! No, never more thy gentle voice shall blend With air of Earth its pure, ideal tones,— Binding in one, as with harmonious zones, The heart and intellect. And I no more Shall with thee gaze on that unfathomed deep, The Human Soul: as when, pushed off the shore, Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep, Itself the while so bright! For oft we seemed As on some starless sea,—all dark above, All dark below,—yet, onward as we drove, To plough up light that ever round us streamed But he who mourns is not as one bereft Of all he loved: thy living Truths are left. "Washington Allston. Cambridge Port, Massachusetts, America.
"For my still dear friend, Mrs. Gillman, of the Grove, Highgate."