That I was wretched you may well believe—
I judged it right, and was resolved to grieve. 240
I lost my mother when there lived not one,
Man, woman, child, whom I would seek or shun.
“The Dean, my uncle, with congenial gloom,
Said, ‘Will you share a melancholy home?’
For he bewail’d a wife, as I deplored
My fate, and bliss that could not be restored.
“In his cathedral’s gloom I pass’d my time
Much in devotion, much in thought sublime;