Lines.—Why look'd I on that fatal line

Louisa Stuart Costello 1799 – 1870



Why look'd I on that fatal line?
    Why did I pray that page to see?
Too well I knew no word of thine
    Was fraught with aught but pain to me.
I should have known, I should have thought
    The fleeting hope would soon decay!
So oft the gleam of joy it brought
    Has only shone to pass away.
Thy hand had traced the words I read;
    And in that dream I wandered on—
Forgot their cherish'd spell was fled,
    Thy vows no more—thy fondness gone.
I lived whole years of joy again
    I dwelt on each recorded vow;
Oh! tender was their meaning then—
    Alas! they have no meaning now!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
111

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCDEFEGHIHI
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 587
Words 113
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16

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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