Alas, their
grief and contriteness of heart would be too late. The little word
which might have saved her from this early death, now spoken, would
fall on deaf ears. At last her verses would be read and their gloomy
prophecy would fill the world, ever afterwards, with remorse. But Mrs.
Simons did not wilt away and die like a flower deprived of water and
sunshine. She could not overcome her naturally sound constitution,
and, in spite of her wishes to the contrary, she lived to a ripe old
age.
Verse demands, as a rule, serious, if not exalted, themes. It is
strange how ambitious they sometimes are. I knew a young man who had
never been especially fond of poetry and had never attempted to write
it, until, one day, he had an imperative desire to test his powers in
that line. And what was the modest subject that the tyro chose? A
history of the earth from its birth "amidst the crash of worlds,"
through the countless centuries until, cold and dry, it affords no
sustenance to life, and becomes a vast desert like the moon. The poem
came to an abrupt end after "monsters huge" had appeared upon the
scene, and, to my knowledge, was never resumed.
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