Fond Wretch! and what canst thou relate,
But Deeds of Sorrow, Shame, and Sin?
Thy Crime is prov’d, thou know’st thy Fate;
But come, thy Tale! begin, begin!—
VAGRANT.
My Crime!—— This sick’ning Child to feed,
I seiz’d the Food, your Witness saw;
I knew your Laws forbad the Deed,
But yielded to a stronger Law.
Know’st thou, to Nature’s great Command,
All human Laws are frail and weak?
Nay! frown not—stay his eager Hand,
And hear me, or my Heart will break.
In this, th’ adopted Babe I hold,
With anxious Fondness to my Breast,
My Heart’s sole Comfort, I behold,
More dear than Life, when Life was blest,
I saw her pining, fainting, cold,
I begg’d—but vain was my Request.
I saw the tempting Food, and seiz’d—
My Infant-Sufferer found Relief;
And, in the pilfer’d Treasure pleas’d,
Smil’d on my Guilt and hush’d my Grief.
But I have Griefs of other Kind,
Troubles and Sorrows more severe;
Give me to ease my tortur’d Mind,
Lend to my Woes a patient ear;
And let me—if I may not find
A Friend to help—find one to hear.
Yet nameless let me plead—my Name
Would only wake the Cry of Scorn;
A Child of Sin, conceiv’d in Shame,
Brought forth in Woe, to Misery born.
My Mother dead, my Father lost,
I wander’d with a vagrant Crew;
A common Care, a common Cost,
Their Sorrows and their Sins I knew;
With them, on Want and Error forc’d,
Like them, I base and guilty grew.
Few are my Years, not so my Crimes;
The Age, which these sad Looks declare,
Is Sorrow’s Work, it is not Time’s,
And I am old in Shame and Care.