OH ! born to sooth distress, and lighten care ; <br />Lively as soft, and innocent as fair ; <br />Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought <br />So rarely found, and never to be taught ; <br />Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind, <br />The loveliest pattern of a female mind ; <br />Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest <br />With all her native heaven within her breast ; <br />So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin, <br /> <br />But thinks the world without like that within ; <br />Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless, <br />Her charity almost becomes excess. <br />Wealth may be courted, wisdom be rever'd, <br />And beauty prais'd, and brutal strength be fear'd ; <br />But goodness only can affection move ; <br />And love must owe its origin to love. <br /> <br /> <br /> ******* <br />OF gentle manners, and of taste refin'd, <br />With all the graces of a polish'd mind ; <br />Clear sense and truth still shone in all she spoke, <br /> <br />And from her lips no idle sentence broke. <br />Each nicer elegance of art she knew ; <br />Correctly fair, and regularly true : <br />Her ready fingers plied with equal skill <br />The pencil's task, the needle, or the quill. <br />So pois'd her feelings, so compos'd her soul, <br />So subject all to reason's calm controul, <br />One only passion, strong, and unconfin'd, <br />Disturb'd the balance of her even mind : <br />One passion rul'd despotic in her breast, <br />In every word, and look, and thought confest ; <br />But that was love, and love delights to bless <br />The generous transports of a fond excess.<br /><br />Anna Laetitia Barbauld<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/characters/
