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“The small orbit of the wedding-ring,”

as a nameless old poet satirically calls it, has seldom proved large enough for genius to revolve in. Mr. Edwards quotes but one marriage poem,

“Thee, Mary, with this ring I wed,”

which he fails to trace to its author, the Rev. Samuel Bishop, who has written nothing else that is worth remembering. I am happy to restore it to him, and to quote a second poem, which is rather more elegant and less familiar, and which is put down to the credit of William Pattison, of whom I know nothing. I take it from Dr. Palmer’s “Poetry of Courtship and Compliment” (1868), an admirable collection of amorous verse.

TO HER RING.

Blest ornament! how happy is thy snare,

To bind the snowy finger of my fair!

O, could I learn thy nice concise art,

Now, as thou bind’st her fingers, bind her heart.

Not Eastern diadems like thee can shine,

Fed from her brighter eyes with beams divine;

Nor can their mightiest monarch’s power command

So large an empire as my charmer’s hand.

O, could thy form thy fond admirer wear,