From Heart of Oak Books, Sixth Book; edited by Charles Eliot Norton, Revised Edition, Illustrated; Boston : D. C. Heath & Co.; 1910; pp. 108-109; 345.
THE DESPAIRING LOVER.
William Walsh.
DISTRACTED with care,
For Phyllis the fair,
Since nothing can move her,
Poor Damon, her lover,
Resolves in despair
No longer to languish
Nor bear so much anguish;
109
But, mad with his love,
To a precipice goes,
Where a leap from above
Will soon finish his woes.
When, in rage, he came there,
Beholding how steep
The sides did appear,
And the bottom how deep;
His torments projecting,
And sadly reflecting
That a lover forsaken
A new love may get,
But a neck when once broken
Can never be set;
And that he could die
Whenever he would,
But that he could live
But as long as he could;
How grievous soever
The torment might grow,
He scorn’d to endeavor
To finish it so.
But bold, unconcern’d
At thoughts of the pain,
He calmly return’d
To his cottage again.
NOTES
PAGE 108. — “In 1705,” says Johnson, in his Life of Walsh, “he began to correspond with Mr. Pope, in whom he discovered very early the power of poetry.”
Pope mentions him in his Essay on Criticism : —
“ . . . Walsh — the Muse’s judge and friend,
Who justly knew to blame or to commend;
To failings mild, but zealous for desert;
The clearest head and the sincerest heart.”
“About fifteen,” says Pope, reported in Spence’s Ancedotes, “I got acquainted with Mr. Walsh. He used to encourage me much, and used to tell me that there was one way left of excelling : for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim.”
Next :
Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe.