"I remember the day of my falling in love,
How fearful I first came to woo;
I hope that these boys will as true-hearted prove,
And our lasses, my dear, look like you."
"Rural Felicity," however, though in a purer style than "Winifreda," can
hardly be said to rise to poetry at all; and if the latter had been by
the same author, it is most improbable that he would have excluded it
from the volume containing the former. Looking at the two songs
together, one is an evident imitation; and the conclusion I should come
to with regard to the other is, that it was written by a man who _knew_
the feeling he describes; by one of whom it could not be said, "He has
no children;" by one to whom that more than identity of interest that
centres in the--
"Unselfish self, the filial self of twain,"
was a familiar feeling. Stevens, perhaps, had repeated the poem, or made
a copy of it, and thus gained the credit of being its author.
I am surprised that your correspondent T. W. should find any difficulty
in the passage he quotes from _Childe Harold_:
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant (_has wasted them_) since."
This mode of expression is only faulty when ambiguous; but here of
ambiguity there is none.