Then breathe my sorrows, plaintive lute! And pour thy soft consoling tone, While I, a list’ning mourner mute, Will call each tender grief my own.
(_In which the Author had taken Shelter during a violent Storm_),
UPON SEEING AN IDIOTIC YOUTH SEATED IN THE CHIMNEY-CORNER, CARESSING A BROOM.
’Twas on a night of wildest storms, When loudly roar’d the raving main,— When dark clouds shew’d their shapeless forms, And hail beat hard the cottage pane,—
Tom Fool sat by the chimney-side, With open mouth and staring eyes; A batter’d broom was all his pride,— It was his wife, his child, his prize!
Alike to him if tempests howl, Or summer beam its sweetest day; For still is pleas’d the silly soul, And still he laughs the hours away.
Alas! I could not stop the sigh, To see him thus so wildly stare,— To mark, in ruins, Reason lie, Callous alike to joy and care.
God bless thee, thoughtless soul! I cried; Yet are thy wants but very few: The world’s hard scenes thou ne’er hast tried; Its cares and crimes to thee are new.
The hoary hag[2], who cross’d thee so, Did not unkindly vex thy brain; Indeed she could not be thy foe, To snatch thee thus from grief and pain.
Deceit shall never wring thy heart, And baffled hope awake no sighs; And true love, harshly forc’d to part, Shall never swell with tears thine eyes.
Then long enjoy thy batter’d broom, Poor merry fool! and laugh away ’Till Fate shall bid thy reason bloom In blissful scenes of brighter day.
[2] It is generally believed by the peasants of Devonshire that idiotcy is produced by the influence of a witch.
Tho’ unknown is the hand that bestow’d thee on me, Sweet leaf! ev’ry fibre I’ll warm with a kiss: With the fame of her beauty thou well dost agree, Whose presence shews conquest, whose triumph is bliss!
OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF LIEUTENANT J——,
ACCIDENTALLY DISCHARGED BY HIS FRIEND, CAPTAIN B——.
With horror dumb, tho’ guiltless, stood Beside his dying friend, The hapless wretch who made the blood Sad from his side descend!
“Give me thy hand; lov’d friend, adieu!” The gen’rous suff’rer cried! “I do forgive and bless thee too;” And, having said it, died!
And Pity, who stood trembling near Knew not for which to shed, So claim’d by both, her saddest tear— The living or the dead!