[Page insert 7a (from back; loose sheet)]
Lines to Dora H.
No fairy pen wherewith to write
No fairy prompter to indite
Waits, Dora, upon me;
Yet on thy tiny spotless book
With playful fancy I can look
And with a spark of childlike glee–
My tremulous fingers feeble hands
Refuse to labour with the mind
And that full oft is misty dull and blind–
How venture then to draw a line
Over this delicate book of thine?
The gorgeous insect’s gauzy wing
The butterfly’s resplendent ring
Would fitliest deck its spotless leaves,
Or violet nursed in April dew,
A halfblown rose of vermeil hue,
Or humming bird from India’s land
Portrayed by youthful lady’s hand–
Such cunning skill was never mine,
Nor in my Early year the line
[Page insert 7b]
E’er flowed in fancy’s theme,
Nor aim held I but simple truth
The wild growth of a happy youth–
Now age my eyesight oft bedims;
My feeblefailing strength, my tottering limbs
Into a prison change this room,
Though it is not a chearless spot,
A cell of sorrow or of gloom;
No damp cold walls Enclose it round,
No heavy hinge’s grating sound
Disturb the silence & the calm –
To the weak body health & balm
Free entrance finds the summer breeze;
Mine Eyes behold the leafy trees,
The skies, the clouds, the gleaming showers,
Crags, lakes, and odiferous flowers –
And fond affections nestle here
With faithful recollections dear,
Children whose parents I on buoyant knee
Carressed and fondled in their infancy
With visions of a pure delight
Not needing aim from bodily sight –
Thou, Dora, then among the first
[Page insert 7c]
Dost nurture joy & pious trust –
I call to mind thy Mother’s girlish grace
And the mild gladness of her face;
The prayer I then breathed forth for her
Doth now again my bosom stir;
I prayed that innocence might guide her youth
Along the paths of sacred truth
x x x x x x x x
Miss Wordsworth
June 1835 – Eliz. Hutchinson
