Herself perchance a widow, or beguil’d:—
A widow! and within her village cot,
She sees the fence encircling the green sward,
And eyes the porchway, leading to the spot
Where he lies mould’ring, once the village bard.
“Boys will be boys,” and so they go a playing;
Methinks I see nigh twenty of them there
Who drop their marbling while the donkey’s braying,
And laugh most heartily at what they hear.
There, ten years hence, not one of them is seen,