Linda Alhaya! those flowerets blue
Match not thine eye’s soft liquid hue,
But they are the self-same language hold,
Waving above those waters cold;
And as we parted on this spot,
They said “Farewell, forget me not!”
Those flowers may bud, and bloom, and die,
Above the brook that wanders by;
And while they live, their blossoms seem
Reflected in its silver stream;
But when rude Time the buds shall sever
Their images are fled for ever.
Oh! thus shall it never be with me
While I have breath and memory;
The stream of life may swell its tide—
Thy image still secure will bide!
My faithful heart in death shall tell,
Linda Alhaya, I loved the well.

THY WILL BE DONE

Thy will be done; how hard a thing to say
When sickness ushers in death’s dreary knell;
When eyes, that lately sparkled bright and gay,
Wander around with dimly conscious ray,
To some familiar face, to bid farewell!
Thy will be done!—the falt’ring lips deny
A passage to the tones as yet unheard;
The sob convulsed, the raised and swimming eye
Seem as appealing to their God on high
For power to breath the yet imperfect word.
Orphan! who watches by the silent tomb
Where those who gave thee life all coldly sleep;
Or, thou who sites in thy desolate home,
Calling to those beloved who cannot come,
And, thinking o’er thy loneliness, dost weep!
Widow! who musest over by-gone years
Of life, and love, and happiness with him
Who shared thy joys and sorrows, hopes and fears,

Who now art left to shed unnoticed tears,
Till thy fair cheek is wan, and eyes grows dim;
Husband! who dreamest of thy gentle wife,
And still in fancy see’st her rosy smile,
Brightening a world of bitterness and strife;
Who from the lonely future of thy life
Turnest, in dreariness, to weep the while!
Mother! whose prayers could not avail to save
Him whom thou loves most thy blue-eyed boy!
Who with a bitter agony dost rave
To the wild winds that fan his early grave,
And dashedst from thy lips the cup of joy!
Mourners! who linger in a world of woe,
Each bowing ‘neath his separate load of grief,
Turn from the silent tomb; and kneeling low
Before that throne at which the angels bow,
Invoke a God of mercy for relief!
Pray that ye too may journey, when ye die,
To that far world where blessed soul are gone;
And, through the gathering sob of agony,
Raise, with a voice resigned, the humble cry,
“Father—Creator—Lord! thy will be done!”

*Linda Alhaya (literally), a pretty jewel.

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Literary Gazette, No. 618, 22 November 1828, p. 741-742
The Sorrows of Rosalie. 12mo. pp. 184 London, 1828. Beers and Co.

This is a very modest, very unassuming, and very beautiful little volume. The fair author has an hereditary claim to talent, for she is, we understand, the daughter of the late Thomas Sheridan; and she has a person claim to admiration and notice, as a woman of no ordinary beauty, and moving in no secondary sphere. It is rarely that youth, beauty, and fashion, form the mould of a poetess; the influence of the latter two, indeed, is generally adverse. But here, though the writer has had to contend with the inexperience of youth, with the injudicious and mind-blighting adulation that is entailed on beauty, and with the distraction of fashionable life,—the seeds of poetry have found in her heart a congenial soil, and have sprung up and flourished, with some of the irregularity perhaps, but with all the freshness and fragrance, of the spontaneous wild flowers of the field and the valley.

There is nothing very intricate in the story of the Sorrows of Rosalie, which comprise the bulk of the volume;—it is the simple narration of a tale which has been told again and again, and which is too often and too truly a tale of real life. Rosalie, won by the artful blandishments of her lover, Arthur, is by him persuaded to leave her aged father, and is awhile deluded by promises of marriage, which ultimately terminate is desertion by the worthless being who has insnared her affections. She seeks her betrayer in London, with her child; encounters all the misery of want, and at length of famine, added to the pangs of remorse. She returns to her father’s house;—-it is his not longer,—nothing of him remains but his memory and his tome. Maddened by the wants of a starving child, she is driven to a dishonest act; is taken, imprisoned, tried, and acquitted. Her child dies in prison; and after a temporary insanity, the result of her distresses, she finds refuge in a remote part of the country,—there to weep and lament over her errors, and seek, in prayer and thoughts of a better future, a solace for the miseries of the present.

These slender materials have been worked into a tale of intense and Crabbe-like pathos; and we hasten to select such portions as our limits admit of this poems and the miscellaneous ones which fill up the volume.

In the following stanzas Rosalie describes her attention to her father in her innocent days.

“Each morn, before the dew was brushed away,
When the wide world was hushed in deep repose,—
When only flowerets hailed the early day,
I gathered many a diamond-spangled rose,
And many a simple bud that wildly blows;
Then quick returning to my father’s bed,
Before his heavy eyelids could unclose,
I shook away the tears that Nature shed,
And placed them with a kiss beside his slumbering head.
My father!—still I see thy silvery hairs
Uplifted gently greatly by the evening breeze,
That placid brow, furrow’d with many cares,
The Bible resting on thy aged knees,
Thine eyes that watch’d the sunset through the trees,
The while I read aloud that holy book,
Or brought wild flowers with childish zeal to please,
Culled bu the mossy bank or running brook,
And guess’d thine every wish and feeling from a look.
And oh! my childhood’s home was lovelier far
Than all the strangers homes where I have been;
It seem’d as if each pale and twinkling star

Loved to shine out upon so fair a scene;
Never were flowers so sweet, or fields so green,
As those that wont that lonely cot to grace.
If, as tradition tells, this earth has seen
Creatures of heavenly form and angel race,
They might have chosen that spot to be their dwelling-place”

How characteristic of woman are the feelings of affectionate regret expressed towards even a deceiver and a betrayer once loved!

“Oh! still the charm clings round my broken heart
With which his early love its cords had bound;
In vain I bid his imaged form depart,
For when I pray, with sad and fault’ring sound,
His name is on my lips,—-and, hov’ring round,
He, the young Arthur of my happy days,
Stands on some green and flowery spot of ground,
With sunny smile and bright enraptur’d gaze,
Greeting me kindly still with visionary praise.”

And again—

“Oh thou! though faithless, still too dearly loved,
When I remember that short year of bliss—
That sunny dream of love, as yet unmoved—
The transient dream of love, as yet unmoved—
The transient tear chased by thy tenner kiss,
I marvel how I can by sunk to this.
I see thee still those eyes all tenderness and truth—
Alas! I wake in vain to mourn my blighted youth.
It was not like the happiness I knew
When I was in my first tweet home of peaceful rest—
’Twas joy, or agony—each feeling grew
Wild, stormy, and tumultuous in my breast,
Though every wish was granted soon as guess’d;
Though I had all for which the happiest sigh,
There was one thought—deep, silent, unespress’d,
Which called the unbidden tear-drib to mine eye,—
A thought of him I left—a thought of days gone by!”

Probably there are few mental pains equal to that felt by a spirit loving purity, which has been once betrayed to evil, under the contempt of those of its own class yet innocent. A passage which we extract touchingly expresses this feeling.

“It was a summer evening, soft and warm;
I gazed upon the heaven, blue and clear,
From out my little lattice window; near
Was Arthur standing—and the woodbine, climbing,
Shed a wild fragrance round—when on my ear
Fell a sweet sound of distant church-bells chiming,
And onward came young forms, their steps to music timing.
Alas! that day—I oped the casement wide,
And watched that gay group with a smiling face—
It was a village wedding; and the bride;
Rosy and rich in all youth’s blooming grace,
Came lightly on, past this my fairy place;
Nearer and nearer still I saw them glide—
She turned, half startled, as she heard me rise;
When some grave matron, walking by her side,
Whispered her—slowly she withdrew her eyes,
With a sad farewell glance of pity and surprise!
Silent she pass’d, last of the white-robed train—
Oh! there was something in her pitying look
Mingled with dread, that thrill’d my heart with pain,
My proud and sinful spirit could not brook
To see those gay ones, as their way they took,
With half-suppressed contempt in every eye;
Tear after tear in vain away I shook,
As all, with downcast glance, went slowly by,
As if they felt, not saw, some evil thing was nigh.
Burst the convulsive sob from out my breast
On Arthur’s arms I leant my throbbing brow;
And did I then forsake my home of rest
To be so scorn’d, so shunn’d, so hated now?
Oh! take me back where my own flowers still blow,
Where the beloved ones I left are dwelling;
Let me but see them once before I go
To that far land where none my sins are telling,
For strong against my breast this breaking heart is swelling.”
The love of her child is, truly to nature, her predominant feeling.

“Oh, beauteous were my baby’s dark blue eyes,
Evermore turning to his mother’s face,
So dove-like soft, yet bright as summer skies;
And pure his cheek as roses, ere the race
Of early blight or stain their tints disgrace.
O’er my loved child enraptured still I hung;
No joy in life could those sweet hours replace,
When by his cradle low I watched and sung;
While still in memory’s ear his father’s promise rung.”
“Long, long I wept with weak and piteous cry
O’er my sweet infant, in its rosy bloom,
As memory brought my hours of agony
Again before my mind;—I mourned his doom;
I mourned my own; the sunny little room
In which, oppressed by sickness, now I lay,
Weeping for sorrows past, and woes to come,
Had been my own in childhood’s early day.
Oh! could those years indeed so soon have passed away!
Past, as the waters of the running brook;
Fled, as the summer wind, that fan the flowers!
All that remained, a word—a tone—a look,
Impressed, by chance, in those bright joyous hours;
Blossoms which, culled from youth’s light fairy bowers,
Still float with lingering scent, as loath to fade,
In spite of sin’s remorseless ‘whelming powers,
Above the wreck which time and grief have made,
Nursed with the dew of tears, though low in ruin laid.”

We have partly selected these passagesL if not the best in book, they will shew the truth and feeling that pervade the whole. We have hardly room for a specimen of the many fugitive pieces which conclude the volume.

“Slow rippling in the zephyr’s breath,
The murmuring waters flow beneath;
Warm glows the sun—sweet breaths the air;
Why are these scenes, though bright and fair,
To me a dreary wilderness?
Linda Alhaya!* canst thou guess?

Oh! thus shall it never be with me
While I have breath and memory;
The stream of life may swell its tide—
Thy image still secure will bide!
My faithful heart in death shall tell,
Linda Alhaya, I loved the well.”

“When the sun is shining brightly on a lithesome summer’s day,
While others dance and sing, I think on him who’s far away;
Amid the gay I wander on, as sad as sad can be—
Oh! while think of you, love, do you think of me?
When the evening shadows fall, love, and silence reigns around,
And the weeping flowers shake the sparkling dew-drops on the ground;
When the pale moon shines so mournfully upon the land and lea—
Oh! while I think of you, love, do you think of me?
And when other suitors come, love, to tempt with smiles and gold,
And tell me that thy heart for is passionless and cold,
I turn in scorn and grief away, and said it cannot be—
When I always think of you, love sure you sometimes think of me!”
“Oh! could I come when days have power,
And Sleep o’er mortals holds her sway,
There, in that silent moonlight hour,
I’d steal thy fickly heart away;
I’d bear it far, where none might see,
True constancy from mine to learn;
And still, while it remained with me,
‘Twould be a pledge for thy return.
But oh! where shall I seek that heart
Which thousands claim, but none make keep?
The gift which daylight sees depart,
Is it resumed before thy sleep?
Shall I seek out each beauteous maid
Who o’er thee held a transient sway?
In vain—where’er thy heart was laid,
Her tears have washed the trace away.
Then must I sit within my bower,
Unwitting where the prize to find,
And smile as each successive hour
Sees changing still thy watering mind;
And still repeat the wish in vain,
That thou wouldst live for me alone—
Or that to ease each maiden’s paint

Thy cruel power to please were gone.”

We wish we could give some beautiful lines “To a Child;” but they are too long to extract entire, and to mutilate them would be injury to their beauty. For the same reason we omit “Music’s Power:” but we must insert the following verses—they are as simple as they are alive to feeling. Perhaps they will be admired only by a few, for they are not in the popular style.

“I do not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bring blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet start may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee!—yet, I know not why,
Whate’er thou dost seems still well done, to me—
And often in my solitude I sigh—
That those I do love are not more life thee!
I do note live thee!—yet, when though art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my car.
I do not love the!—yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue—
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I don not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gasping were thou art.”

Poetry in abundance has come under are cognizance of late, but none which holds out a fairer promise of excellence than that of the beautiful and unsophisticated authoress whose work we have just noticed.

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Morning Post, Issue: 18083, 28 November 1828, p. 3
POETRY
The SORROWS of ROSALIE, and other POEMS. Demy 8uo., pp. 134.

This simple, unaffected, and beautiful effusions will be perused and re-perused with still increasing pleasure. We understand that the authoress is the Hon. Mrs. Norton, grand-daughter of the celebrated Sheridan, that she is young, amiable, and interesting, and moves in the highest

circles. These circumstances one might be motives for critical indulgence, but she requires none; her claims to favour rest on more secure grounds. The tale is simple, and one which too often finds its original in real life; it is briefly that of purity and innocence ensnared by the arts of treachery, and left to bewail its ruin. The successive scenes of the affecting drama are full of energy and pathos. How sweet the picture of Rosalie’s early life—her tranquil home rendered yet happier by the ties of filial affection! how glowing the portraiture of that all-powerful passion which draws her from its joys! how touching the tender and confiding love of Innocence, how dread its disappointment! Deserted by him on whom he placed reliance, she seeks the Metropolis, discovers her betrayer, is repulsed, toils back to the home of her childhood, and finds it tenanted by strangers: these scenes are exquisitely depicted. She is at length reduced to penury, and endures every misery, fill the sight of her starving child urges her to an act of desperation. It is thus described:—

There came a day—I sat alone—alone!
The dismal showers had drench’d my thread-worn dress,
And, seate on the cold and dripping stones,
Without the power to ask for alms—still less
The strength to wander in my wretchedness,
My dying baby laid upon my knee;
I look’d on this who pass’d, and sought to guess
Where pity dwelt, still gazing wistfully,
With hope, but half extinct, of that which could not be.
A carriage stopp’d—-a lady, richly dress’d
Alighted, and I rose in doubt and fear—
The faint and murmuring tones, but half express’d,
Fell on a hardened heart and deafened ear;
She pass’d—I gazed—and felt the blow severe;
But as she went, upon the stones there fell
A sparkling cross, of jewels rich and rare;
Rushed o’er my mind the though that dared not dwell—
I had a child—THAT child!—oh! needs there more to tell?
I seized it—fled—behind me rose a shout—
On!—on!—my trembling knees could scarce sustain
The weight above—near, nearer came the rout—
On! on!—oh! shall the effort be in vain?
A few yards more, and then would end my pain—
I reached a shop—flung down the cross, and said,
“Food for my child!” I could no more restrain
My weakness and my woe—I snatched the bread,
Gave it to HIM, and sunk—lifeless, unconscious, dead!

She is taken, imprisoned, tried, and acquitted; but a sense of shame and degradation sits heavy at her heart. Her child dies in prison, and upon her release she remain in a state of temporary bewilderment. Happiness is based for ever, yet religious hope supports her, and a holy calm sheds its pure radiance over the concluding pages of the story. The simplicity of the poetry is ain accordance with the subject; it is expressive, and altogether unlabored; but the strength of natural feeling which displays itself in many parts of this little poem constitutes its greatest charm, and has power to awaken the sympathy of every reader. We cannot deny ourselves the measure of making such further extracts as our space will allow, though it is not form isolated quotations that the beauty of the production as a whole can be appreciated.

(From the First Part.)

Each morn, before the dew was brushed away,
When the wide world was hushed in deep repose,—
When only flowerets hailed the early day,
I gathered many a diamond-spangled rose,
And many a simple bud that wildly blows;
Then quick returning to my father’s bed,
Before his heavy eyelids could unclose,
I shook away the tears that Nature shed,
And placed them with a kiss beside his slumbering head.
My father!—still I see thy silvery hairs
Uplifted gently greatly by the evening breeze,
That placid brow, furrow’d with many cares,
The Bible resting on thy aged knees,
Thine eyes that watch’d the sunset through the trees,
The while I read aloud that holy book,
Or brought wild flowers with childish zeal to please,
Culled bu the mossy bank or running brook,
And guess’d thine every wish and feeling from a look.
The evening came—would it had never come!
And I prepared to go, with many a tear;
A sad, yet willing exile from my home,
Forsaking all I held on each most dear, bed!”
My father called me, for he loved to hear
The Bible read by his loved child alone:—
I tried to read; but, oh! I could not bear
The fond dim look—the gentle, trembling tone;
I scarcely heard his words, and sorrows choked my own.

Murmuring I sill read on—my words unheeded,
With fear, and doubt, and sorrow almost wild;
From him I could not ask the help I needed,
Till breaking on my trance, in accent mild
And fatherly, he said, “What ails my child?
What sorrow, Rosalie, is in thy breast?
Perchance thy favorite lamb has been beguiled
To quit its home—perchance some ringdove’s nest
A truant boy hath torn from out its pace of rest.
“Nay, sob not thus, my Rosalie: whate’er
Thy griefs, thou surely, love, canst tell them me.”
I could not answer—choking with despair,
I hid my throbbing brow upon his knee;
Then looked up to his face in agony.
I had confessed, had one word more been said.
But whispering, “this is childish,” smilingly,
He laid his trembling hand upon my head,
“Heaven bless the now, my child! sweet sleep await thy bed!”
He went; and when I though upon the morning
When he would wake to solitary woe,
And when I gaz’d upon the flowers adoring
The spot I once deem’d happiest below—
When I beheld the Bible cherish’d so,
For the sake of those who now were fallen asleep,
I thought within my heart I COULD not go:
And with repentance, silent, sad, and deep,
I sat me down alone in bitterness to weep.

We must for the present defer giving a specimen from the miscellaneous pieces, many of which are distinguished by great sweetness both of though and expression.

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The Lady’s Monthly Museum, 1 January 1829, p. 52-53
A little volume entitled “The Sorrows of Rosalie, and other Poems,” has, in one short month, reached a second edition, This is not very decided proof of merit: fashion does more, in this respect, for an author, than talent; but the poems before us have the rare advantage of being the production of a lady who moves in the higher ranks of society, and who possesses all the qualifications necessary to secure respect and attention. She is, it is reported, a near relative of the late Mr. Shreidan, and retains, certainly, a very ample portion of hereditary genius. “The Sorrows of Rosalie” is a poem of good merit: the plot is common-place enough—a female seduced and abandoned—but the poetry is of a very high order. The imagery is original and

happy, and the versification correct and smooth. The treatment of the subject evinces much good taste; and the whole is imbued with so much mind, that the authoress must be allowed at once to taker her place beside the most distinguished female writers of the present day.

The minor pieces also possess great merit. The following fair specimen: though the subject is somewhat hackneyed, the thoughts are not devoid of originality.\

THE YOUNG CRUSADER

“Clear and bright the moon was peeping
From the fleecy clouds of snow;
Near a young crusader sleeping,
Thus a voice was singing low:—
“ ‘Perjured false one, who could’st leave me?
Leave thy hapless Moorish maid;
Swear and vow, but to deceive me,
See the price by Neilah paid!
“ ‘ See these features, palely gleaming
As the moonlight o’er the sea;
These eyes, that late with lover were beaming,
Never more shall gaze on thee
“ ‘As dies the shoot that’s roughly parted
From its own—its parent tree,
So thy Neilah, broken hearted,
Dies—no more beloved by thee!
“ ‘Wounded, when the conflict’s rattle
Ceases, thou may’st seek repose,
E’en upon the field of battle;
But my wound will never close.
“ ‘Yet thy Neilah still will love thee,
Till friendly death shall end her woe
While the sun shall shine above thee
Shadows still his light myst throw’
“Starts the warrior, wildly raving,
From the dream that breaks his sleep;
His loved one, with her locks loose waving,
O’er him seems to bend and weep.
“Repentent thoughts his mind revolving,
He rushes towards the weeping fair;
Like a flake of snow dissolving,
With sighs his Neilah melts in air.
“Madly fought he on the morrow;
Rage and love alternate burn;
Quickly death relieves his sorrow,

Faithless hearts may read and learn!”

There are some pretty verses on the Nursery: indeed, domestic incident seem to have furnished many of the subjects. The idea expressed in the following stanzas is new and pretty.

SAY NOT ’TIS DARK.

“Say not ’tis dark!—the night
Is never dark to me;
Around my couch they some in light—
Visions I would not see.
“Forms I have loved,—as bright
As in life’s joyous years;
Say not ’tis dark!—the murkiest night
Hath light enough for tears!”

Le Belle Assemblée, Vol. IX, Issue LIV, 1 June 1829, p. 298

“The Sorrows of Rosalie” constitute—what we abominate—a tale of seduction. The poem, however is gracefully turned in the Spencerian stanza. Amongst the minor poems of the volume —a volume which has run through four editions in the course of a few months—are may see little pieces; on of which, as a specimen of Mrs. Norton’s talent, we shall quote. The subject— Chatelar’s Fare-well—is familiar to every reader:—

Farewell, thou dearest of all things
Beneath the bright and blessed sky;
Since thy loved voice the mandate brings,
’Twill not be hard to die.
And yet, was it thy voice which spoke
The wild and withering word of Death?
Thy voice, whose tones the love awoke
Which haunts my parting breath!
Oh! when the heart which hath so well
Its deep and lone devotion proved
Is still, and tongues have ceased to tell
How guiltily it loved,
Wilt thou—wilt thou who for that crime
Hadst doomed its warm life-blood to pour,
Think sometimes of the olden time—
The smile and song of yore?
Yes, Mary, yes! each burning thought
The quivering lip refused to own,

Each glance of love shall rise unsought,
And haunt thee when alone!
When watching as we watched the rays,
Of evening’s pale and gentle star,
Mem’ry will bring my shortened days—
Thou’lt weep for Chatelar!

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New Monthly Magazine, NS 27, 1 February 1829, p 56
The Sorrows of Rosalie. A Tale With other Poems. foolscap 8vo.

The present little work is attributed to the pen of a lady. Were it not for the fair, we should havebut little new poetry now-a-days. Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, Mrs. Howitt, Miss Browne, and others of the beau sexe, have all a woman’s constancy for the Muse, and do not desire the worship because it does not happen, just at present, to be the ton; and here is another lady (the Hon. Mrs. Norton, wife of the Member for Guildford,) to be added to the list. The title of the principal poem in the present volume is unquestionably in too sickly and romantic a taste, as tales of seduction generally are; but the stanzas have much merit, especially as regards the tenderness of sentiment, and the melancholy interest of the story which they embody. Had we room enough, we should be happy to make an abstract of the latter, and to give specimens of the happy way in which the authoress has overcome the difficulties of the Spenserian stanza. We have seen a copy of the fourth edition of this successful little book, and therefore are enabled to
lay before our readers a copy of verses which did not appear in the first edition, and which, we think, will soon flourish in the music-shops, in connexion with the notes of Bishop, or some other popular composer.

Love Not

Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay—
Hope’s games wreaths are made of early flowers:
Things that are made to fade and fall away—
Ere they have blossom’d for a few short hours—
Love not!
Love not! the thing you love may die—
May perish from the gay and gladsome earth—
The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky,
Beam on its grave, as once upon its birth—
Love not!
Love not! the thing you love may change
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you
The kingly-beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The art still warmly beat, yet not be true.
Love not!
Love not! oh warning vainly said
In present hours, as in years gone by—