184 RECORDS OF A HEART. 



of their poetic merit — that is slight, and the most careless eye 

 may perceive defects which mar the smoothness of the lines ; 

 but it is the passionate utterance of this girlish tenderness 

 which makes its only charm. 



About a year later was written one of different character : 



No, dearest one, — not mine the hand 



To bind thy free and tameless heart 

 In fetters, which thou canst not break 



When changeful fancy bids us part ; 

 Be it my task alone to bear 



Affection's daily-strengthening chain, 

 And thou may est wreathe its links with flowers 



But never feel its pain. 



The slender fibre that unites 



The young peach-blossom to the bough, 

 Is not more fragile than the tie 



Which binds our hearts together now ; 

 Yet better to be thus, for when 



The tempest comes, — and come it will, — 

 It can but rend the fading flower, 



The branch may flourish still. 



Here is love, tender and true, yet self-sacrificing ; refusing 

 even to be happy, while a doubt remains as to its power of 

 conferring happiness on another. This forms the second 

 epoch in the heart's history, and now comes a third and darker 

 era. Some months after the date of the little poem just given 

 I find the following : 



