Cambridge <1>
May 15th 1820
It is a long time since you have written to me; I have been in daily expectation of a letter from Baden, Havre, or Montmorenci. Did you not receive the letter in which I gave you a detailed account of all my adventures? I am very anxious to know what you have settled upon, & besides it makes me uneasy not to hear from you for so long a while, when the French papers are full of nothing but plots. Everything here is just as usual: the weather has been remarkably pleasant.
The following ode is remarkable as being the first effort of the Australasian Muse. Besides I think some of the ideas are original. I don't know whether it has been in your Paper.
To the Full Moon
at Sea near the coast of New Holland
June 18. 1819 by Dr Halloran, <2> a convict
Queen of the Night whose orb serene
Thro' liquid æther calmly floats,
By her is thy mild radiance seen
On whom my heart with fondness doats
&c &c &c
And - do my Anna's pensive eyes
View thee with kindred thoughts to mine?
Ah no - from distant western skies
On her meridian splendours shine!
Yet, few the hours & short the space
Ere thy mild beams her eye shall cheer
While in renewed diurnal race
The sun shall shed his fervours here!
Oh couldst thou on thy silver sphere
Inscribed this heart's emotions bear
Its yearning hope, its anxious fear,
Its fond regard, its tender care,
Couldst thou sweet planet fair & calm
To her its faithful love disclose,
T'would yield her suffering heart a balm
To read even what so well she knows
But no! his heart thou canst not shew
Still changing in thy nightly range
Whose love, whose truth, in joy or woe
In life or death can never change.
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
2 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Trinity College, Cambridge.
2. The Irish poet Lawrence Hynes Halloran (or O'Halloran, 1765-1831), who forged a ten-pence frank and was transported in 1819.