Gone! Ha! Mistress Bliss, gone! poor soul.
Oh! she is in Heaven, depend on it--nothing can hinder it. Oh,
Lord, no, nothing--an angel!--an angel by this time--for it must
give God very little trouble to make _her_ an angel--she was so
charming! Such terrible figures as my Lord C. and my Lady Mary, to
be sure, it would take at least a month to make such ones anything
like angels--but poor Corinna wanted very few repairs. Perhaps the
sweet little soul is now seeing what is going on in our cabin--who
knows? Charming little Corinna! Lord! how funny it was, for all the
world like a rabbit or a squirrel or a kitten at play. Gone! as you
say, Gone! Well now for her epitaph.
CORINNA'S EPITAPH.
"Here sleeps what was innocence once, but its snows
Were sullied and trod with disdain;
Here lies what was beauty, but plucked was its rose
And flung like a weed to the plain.
"O pilgrim! look down on her grave with a sigh
Who fell the sad victim of art,
Even cruelty's self must bid her hard eye
A pearl of compassion impart.
"Ah! think not ye prudes that a sigh or a tear
Can offend of all nature the God!
Lo! Virtue already has mourned at her bier
And the lily will bloom on her sod.
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