1837-38. TO A SOAP-BUBBLE. 143 



which is certainly, as the sternest mathematician would allow, a 

 trifle light as air. 



" Miss - - reproached me for not writing in her album. I 

 told her I never wrote without being asked, but would will- 

 ingly if she wished. On receiving it, I inserted the following 

 verses : 



" TO A SOAP-BUBBLE. 



" Bright little world of my own creating, 



Blown with a breath of the viewless air, 

 Thy fragile form in circles dilating 



Seems destined each hue of the rainbow to wear ; 

 The amethyst's purple is given to thee, 



And the ruby has lent thee its own ruddy hue, 

 And the emerald's green, like the sparkling sea, 



Mingles its tints with the sapphire's blue. 

 Thou art a sun, rich in thy brightness ; 

 Thou art a moon, silvered with whiteness ; 

 Thou art a planet, begirt with a glow 

 Of colours enamelled above and below, 

 As only the pencil of light can bestow. 



" Who knoweth now but that each starry sphere 



That silently floats in the heavens on high, 

 Was once a gay bubble, pellucid and clear, 



Before it was given a place in the sky, 

 And blown by the lips of some young angel, trying, 



While his close feather' d wings were yet tiny and frail, 

 By other bright things, and their fashion of flying, 



To learn on his own gilded pinions to sail ? 

 For thus one by one the planets were blown, 

 And the bright milky way with starry gems sown. 

 In the ether above no storms ever blow 

 To crush their frail forms, or toss to and fro 

 Those delicate worlds, so round in their orbits they ever shall go." 



" May 28, 1838. 



" It is now a long time, nearly a month, since I wrote you, 

 and without the excuse of busy study to plead for silence. Not 

 a line has reached you from me since I wrote immediately after 

 passing. I told you then that I purposed going to Haddington, 

 on Samuel Brown's invitation. At the time, however, which 

 suited me best, some friends came out to see the family, and it 

 would not have been convenient to receive me, so I was left 

 disappointed in the very beginning of the flitting [Anglic}, 

 removal]. You will not wonder that I hesitated little to 

 accompany Mr. Mackay to Glasgow, in which place, and the 



