[Page [256]]

TO MRS. K—,

ON HER SENDING ME ENGLISH CHRISTMAS PLUMB-CAKE, AT PARIS.

1 WHAT crowding thoughts around me wake,
2 What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
3 Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
4 Enclos'd within its od'rous cells?
5 Is there no small magician bound
6 Encrusted in its snowy round?
7 For magic surely lurks in this,
8 A cake that tells of vanish'd bliss;
9 A cake that conjures up to view
10 The early scenes, when life was new;
11 When mem'ry knew no sorrows past,
12 And hope believ'd in joys that last!
[Page 257]
13 Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
14 Life's calendar of bliss and pain;
15 That speaks of friends for ever fled,
16 And wakes the tears I love to shed.
17 Oft shall I breathe her cherish'd name
18 From whose fair hand the off'ring came:
19 For she recalls the artless smile
20 Of nymphs that deck my native Isle;
21 Of beauty that we love to trace,
22 Allied with tender, modest grace;
23 Of those who, while abroad they roam,
24 Retain each charm that gladdens home,
25 And whose dear friendship can impart
26 A Christmas banquet for the heart!

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Title (in Source Edition): TO MRS. K—, ON HER SENDING ME ENGLISH CHRISTMAS PLUMB-CAKE, AT PARIS.
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Genres: occasional poem

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Source edition

Williams, Helen Maria, 1759-1827. Poems on various subjects: with introductory remarks on the present state of science and literature in France. London: G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1823, pp. [256]-257.  (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [8º W 229 BS].)

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Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Helen Maria Williams