I am got somewhat rational now,
and don't bite any one. But mad I was and many a vagary my imagination
played with me,--enough to make a volume, if all were told. My sonnets I
have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day
communicate to you. I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which, if I
finish, I publish. White [2] is on the eve of publishing (he took the
hint from Vortigern) "Original Letters of Falstaff, Shallow," etc.; a
copy you shall have when it comes out. They are without exception the
best imitations I ever saw. Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards
for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my madness as much almost
as on another person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate
cause of my temporary frenzy.
The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry; but you will be curious
to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of
my lucid intervals.
TO MY SISTER.
If from my lips some angry accents fell,
Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,
'T was but the error of a sickly mind
And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well
And waters clear of Reason; and for me
Let this my verse the poor atonement be,--
My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined
Too highly, and with partial eye to see
No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show
Kindest affection; and wouldst oft-times lend
An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.
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