The third Stanza
has a little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has
rather too serious a cast. The fourth Stanza is a very indifferent
one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the second
Stanza, but the rest is mostly an expletive. The thoughts in the
fifth Stanza come fairly up to my favorite idea [of] a sweet sonsy
Lass. The last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments
are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth Stanza,
but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurts
the whole. The seventh Stanza has several minute faults; but I
remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to
this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, and my blood
sallies at the remembrance."
In spite of the early start in poetry given him by Nelly Kilpatrick,
he did not produce more than a few pieces of permanent value during
the next ten years. He did, however, go on developing and branching
out in his social activities, in spite of the depressing grind of the
farm. He attended a dancing school (much against his father's will),
helped to establish a "Bachelors' Club" for debating, and found time
for further love-affairs. That with Ellison Begbie, celebrated by him
in _The Lass of Cessnock Banks_, he took very seriously, and he
proposed marriage to the girl in some portentously solemn epistles
which remain to us as the earliest examples of his prose.
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