Lines.—Oft on that latest star

Louisa Stuart Costello 1799 – 1870



Oft on that latest star of purest light,
   That hovers on the verge of morning gray,
I gaze, and think of eyes that gleam'd as bright,
   As fondly linger'd, and yet pass’d away.

While this true heart in every throb can tell
  'Tis changeless since the first fond hour we met—
While at thy name it wakes, as to a spell,
   I feel 'tis not in nature to forget!

Thou canst not have forgot the tender hour
  When we our parting tears together shed;
Thou canst not have forgot the fading flower
  That ask'd thy hand to raise its drooping head.

Thy voice, thy looks, thy sighs, too truly spoke—
  Oh! how could they deceive thyself and me?
No! death alone the bond of truth has broke,
   And cast oblivion on the world and thee!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
42

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 724
Words 137
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Louisa Stuart Costello

Louisa Stuart Costello was a writer on travel and French history. Costello was born in Ireland or Sussex. She resided in Paris, France, near the Seine River. She had no true home, but wandered place to place staying with friends and acquaintances. With her brother Dudley Costello, also a well known for his travel writing, they promoted the copying of illuminated manuscript. She wrote over 100 texts, articles, poems, songs and knew such people as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore. She was a poet, historian, journalist, painter and novelist. Her father was Colonel James Francis Costello, who died in April 1814 while fighting Napoleon. Costello published Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen, which included her illustrations, and several other popular works of poetry and travel. Her collection Songs of a Stranger was dedicated to William Lisle Bowles. She did not return to France until after her mother sent for her in 1815/18 and then lived chiefly in Paris, where she was a miniature-painter. In 1815 she published The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, etc. She also wrote books of travel, which were very popular, as were her novels, chiefly founded on French history. Another work, published in 1835, is Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She died in Boulogne sur Mer, France of mouth cancer. more…

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