Song.—When others saw thee



When others saw thee gay and vain,
    And saw my weakness too,—
A willing captive in thy chain,
    Nor doubt nor care I knew.
When others saw thy faults too well,
    And bade my heart beware,
I linger'd in thy beauty's spell,
    And found no danger there.

Even when I saw how false and cold
    Thou couldst to others be,
My trusting heart would not be told
    Thou wert untrue to me.
Like one whom lovely fruits allure
    To death and misery*,
I find my fate admits no cure,
    And know the truth—to die!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
31

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EFEFGFGX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 509
Words 97
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8

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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