ELEGY ON AN UNFORTUNATE VETERAN.
The loud inclement storm now rages high,
Then why, my friend, imprudent dost thou roam?
Go seek some hospitable shelter nigh,
Or haste and warm thee at thy social home.
Nor longer thy half-cover’d limbs expose,
To the assaults of th’ unpitying air;
Thy fragile body sure demands repose,
For numerous years have silver’d o’er thy hair.
“No home I have!” the hapless wanderer cries;
Say, was thy youth to vicious courses given;
That thus thy age must brave inclement skies,
To fate the vengeance of offended heaven?
No guilty passion warm’d my youthful breast,
Nor foul injustice stain’d my spotless name;
But once in brighter, happier prospects blest,
I sacrific’d those golden views to fame.
Ardent to check Iberia’s tyrant pow’r,
Thro’ unpropitious seas I took my way,
And gain’d her coast, but, ah, unhappy hour!
How many gallant soldiers fell that day!
After long toils, and various hardships borne,
Our gen’rous blood the vanquish’d foe repays;
But now I droop in poverty forlorn,
And mourn the triumphs of my youthful days.
Frowning the soldier told his piteous tale,
Ah! what to him the humbled pride of Spain?
He help’d to conquer, what does it avail?
He now is left to poverty and pain.
Forever blessed be the bounteous heart,
That may the suppliant child of woe receive,
The blessings favouring fortune gave impart,
To me that fortune gives but to relieve.
MATILDA.
New-York, 1775.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.