The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1838-09-15

It is seldom that poetry is written worthy OF this
subject. The following may be called SO. 1t is by
the Manchester poet, Charles Swain.
Lowell will tell thee what it is to love :...
1t is to build with human thoughts a shrine,
Where Hope sits hrooding like beauteous dove;
Where Time seems young and Life thing divine
All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine
To consecrate this sanctuary Of bliss,
Above, the stars in shroudless beauty shine
Around, the streams their Aowery margin kiss
And if there's heaven earth, that heaven is surely this
Yes, this is Love, the steadast and the true,
The Immortal glory which hath set
The best, the brightest boon the heart e'er knew,
OF all lfe's sweets, the very sweetest yet
Oh! who but can recall the eve they met
To breathe, in some green walk, their first young
While summer flowers with moonlight dews were wet,
And winds sighed soft around the mountains brow
And all was rapture then--which is but memory now
OF THE VARIOUS WAYS OF GETTING IN LOVE.
man falls in love just as he falls down stairs. 1t
is an neutrality-suspicious. and very probably misfor-
tune; something which he neither intended, nor
foresaw, nor apprehended. But when he runs in
love it is as when he runs in debt; il is done know
ingly and intentionally; and very often rashly and
toolishy, even If not ridiculously, miserably, and
ruinously.
Marriages tha, made up at watering places are
mostly Of this running SORT; and there may be rea-
son 10 think that they even less likely to lead to
gree Of contentment, than those which plain
business Of bargain and sale; for in these latter
certain degree of prudence enters on both sides But
there is distinction TO be made here the man who
Of affection the .womans part, may nevertheless
get in every worldly sense Of the word good wife;
and while English women continue 10 be what, thank
Heaven they are, he is likely to do so: but when
women is married for the sake OF her fortune, the
case is altered, and the chances are five hundred TO
one that she marries villain, or at best scoun-
drel.
Falling in love and running in love are both, as
every body knows common enough; and yet less so,
than what shall call catching love- Where The
love itself is impruden that is to say where there is
some just prudential cause or impeachment why the
two parties should not be joined together in holy ma
trmony, there is generally some degree Of cnlpable
imprudence in catching it, because the danger is
always to be apprehended, and may in most cases be
avoided. But sometimes the circumstances may be
such as to leave no room for censure, even when
there may be- most cause for compassion
The rarest, and surely the happest marriages. are
between those who have grown in love. Take the
description Of such love in its rise and progress, We
thousands and tens Of thousands who have what is
called taste for poetry, take it in the sweet words
of one of the sweetest and tenderest Of English poets
and if We doubt upon the strength of my opinion ask
Leigh Hunt, or the laureate or Wordsworth, or
Charles Lamb.
All! remember we'll (and how can
But evermore remember we) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The fame we felt when as we sat and sighed
And looked upon each other, and conceived
Not what ailed--yet something we did all
And yet WE'LL and yet were not well,
And what disease could not tell.
Then would kiss, then sigh, then look and thus
In that first garden Of our smpeness
We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge, ali, how then
Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness;
Yet still would give flowers, still would me show
What she would have me- yet not have me know.
Take also the passage that presently follows this it
aludes to game which has long been obsolete but
some fair reader doubt not will remember the lines
when she dances next.
And when in sport with other company
OF nymphs and shepherds we have met abroad,
How she would steal look and watch mine eye
Which way it VENT And when at barley -break
II came unto my turn to .escue her,
With what earnest, swift and nimbe pace
Would her affection make her feet to run,
And farther than TO my hand her race
Had stop but my bosom, where no end.
And when we we're to break again, how late
And oah her trembling hand would part with mine !;
And with how slow pace would she set forth
To meet the encounering party who contends
To attain her, aordng him her fingers ends ="
+Hymens triumph,