The story of the Sorrows of Rosalie (there’s music in the name) is not of uncommon occurrence; would to heaven it were more rare.  Rosalie, won by her omnipotent lover, Arthur, leaves her aged father; is deceived by promises of marriage, and at length deserted by her seducer.  She seeks her betrayer in London, (where the many-headed monster, vice, may best conceal herself,) is repulsed, and after enduring all the bitterness of cruelty, hunger, and remorse, she returns to her father’s house; but nothing of him and his remains but his memory and his tomb.  She is then driven to dishonesty to supply the cravings of her child—­is tried and acquitted.  During her imprisonment, the child dies; distress brings on her temporary insanity; but she at length flies to a secluded part of the country, and there seeks a solace for her miseries in making peace with her offended Maker.

We can only detach a few portions of the poem, just to show the intensity with which even common scenes and occurrences are worked up.  Here is a picture of Rosalie’s happy home: 

  Home of my childhood! quiet, peaceful home! 
  Where innocence sat smiling on my brow,
  Why did I leave thee, willingly to roam,
  Lured by a traitor’s vainly-trusted vow? 
  Could they, the fond and happy, see me now,
  Who knew me when life’s early summer smiled,
  They would not know ’twas I, or marvel how
  The laughing thing, half woman and half child,
  Could e’er be changed to form so squalid, wan, and wild.

  I was most happy—­witness it, ye skies,
  That watched the slumbers of my peaceful night! 
  Till each succeeding morning saw me rise
  With cheerful song, and heart for ever light;
  No heavy gems—­no jewel, sparkling bright,
  Cumbered the tresses nature’s self had twined;
  Nor festive torches glared before my sight;
  Unknowing and unknown, with peaceful mind,
  Blest in the lot I knew, none else I wished to find.

  I had a father—­a gray-haired old man,
  Whom Fortune’s sad reverses keenly tried;
  And now his dwindling life’s remaining span,
  Locked up in me the little left of pride,
  And knew no hope, no joy, no care beside. 
  My father!—­dare I say I loved him well? 
  I, who could leave him to a hireling guide? 
  Yet all my thoughts were his, and bitterer fell
  The pangs of leaving him, than all I have to tell.

  And oh! my childhood’s home was lovelier far
  Than all the stranger homes where I have been;
  It seem’d as if each pale and twinkling star
  Loved to shine out upon so fair a scene;
  Never were flowers so sweet, or fields so green,
  As those that wont that lonely cot to grace
  If, as tradition tells, this earth has seen
  Creatures of heavenly form and angel race. 
  They might have chosen that spot to be their dwelling place.

The first approach of her lover is thus told: