Читать книгу Lives of Celebrated Women - Samuel G. Goodrich - Страница 8

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“Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream,

Lit by the sun’s resplendent beam,

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Reflect each bending tree so light

Upon thy bounding bosom bright!

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

The little isles that deck thy breast,

And calmly on thy bottom rest,

How often, in my childish glee,

I’ve sported round them, bright and free!

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

How oft I’ve watched the freshening shower

Bending the summer tree and flower,

And felt my little heart beat high

As the bright rainbow graced the sky!

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

And shall I never see thee more,

My native lake, my much-loved shore?

And must I bid a long adieu,

My dear, my infant home, to you?

Shall I not see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain?”

But Margaret was happy; the family were reunited, and she had health sufficient to allow her to pursue her studies, still under her mother’s direction. She was fond, too, of devising little plans for intellectual improvement and amusement: among others, a weekly newspaper was issued in manuscript, called the “Juvenile Aspirant.” But this happiness was soon clouded. Her own severe illness excited alarming fears; and hardly was she convalescent, when, in the spring of 1834, intelligence was received from 36 Canada of the death of her eldest sister. This was a severe shock, for she had always looked up to this only surviving sister as to one who would supply the place of her seemingly dying mother. But she forgot her own grief in trying to solace that of her mother. Her feelings, as usual, were expressed in verses, which are as remarkable for their strain of sober piety as for poetical merit. The following are portions of an address—