“Perhaps in some far distant Shore,
“There are who in these Forms delight;
“Whose milky Features please them more,
“Than ours of Jet thus burnish’d bright;
“Of such may be his weeping Wife,
“Such Children for their Sire may call,
“And if we spare his ebbing Life,
“Our Kindness may preserve them all.”
Thus her Compassion Woman shows,
Beneath the Line her Acts are these;
Nor the wide Waste of Lapland-Snows,
Can her warm Flow of Pity freeze:—
“From some sad Land the Stranger comes,
“Where Joys, like ours, are never found;
“Let’s soothe him in our happy Homes,
“Where Freedom sits, with Plenty crown’d.
“’Tis good the fainting Soul to cheer,
“To see the famish’d Stranger fed;
“To milk for him the Mother-Deer,
“To smooth for him the furry Bed.
“The Powers above, our Lapland bless,
“With Good no other People know;
“T’ enlarge the Joys that we possess,
“By feeling those that we bestow!”
Thus in Extremes of Cold and Heat,
Where wandering Man may trace his Kind;
Where-ever Grief and Want retreat,
In Woman they Compassion find;
She makes the Female Breast her Seat,
And dictates Mercy to the Mind.
Man may the sterner Virtues know,
Determin’d Justice, Truth severe:
But Female Hearts with Pity glow,
And Woman holds Affliction dear;
For guiltless Woes her Sorrows flow,
And suffering Vice compels her Tear;
’Tis her’s to soothe the Ills below,
And bid Life’s fairer Views appear;
To Woman’s gentle Kind we owe,
What comforts and delights us here;
They its gay Hopes on Youth bestow,
And Care they soothe and Age they cheer.
Printed by Brettell and Co.
Marshall-Street, Golden-Square.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the Life of S. Johnson, by Boswell, vol. iv. p. 185 8vo. edit.
[2] Neither of these were adopted; the Author had written, about that time, some Verses to the memory of Lord Robert Manners, Brother to the late Duke of Rutland; and these, by a junction, it is presumed, not forced or unnatural, form the concluding part of the Village.