First of the train, the patient rustic came,
Whose callous hand had form’d the scene,
Bending at once with sorrow and with age,
With many a tear and many a sigh between;
“And where,” he cried, “shall now my babes have bread,
Or how shall age support its feeble fire?
No lord will take me now, my vigour fled,
Nor can my strength perform what they require;
Each grudging master keeps the labourer bare—
A sleek and idle race is all their care.
My noble Mistress thought not so:
Her bounty, like the morning dew,
Unseen, though constant, us’d to flow;
And as my strength decay’d, her bounty grew.”
Woman Speaker.
In decent dress, and coarsely clean,
The pious matron next was seen—
Clasp’d in her hand a godly book was borne,
By use and daily meditation worn;
That decent dress, this holy guide,
Augusta’s care had well supplied.
“And, ah!” she cries, all woe-begone,
“What now remains for me?
Oh! where shall weeping want repair,
To ask for charity?
Too late in life for me to ask,
And shame prevents the deed;
And tardy, tardy are the times
To succour, should I need.
But all my wants, before I spoke,
Were to my Mistress known;
She still reliev’d, nor sought for praise,
Contented with her own.
But every day her name I’ll bless—
My morning prayer, my evening song;
I’ll praise her while my life shall last,
A life that cannot last me long.”
Song.—By a Woman.
Each day, each hour, her name I’ll bless,
My morning and my evening song;
And when in death my vows shall cease,
My children shall the note prolong.
Man Speaker.
The hardy veteran, after struck the sight,
Scarr’d, mangled, maim’d in every part;
Lopp’d of his limbs in many a gallant fight,
In nought entire—except his heart;
Mute for a while, and sullenly distrest,
At last the impetuous sorrow fir’d his breast:
“Wild is the whirlwind rolling
O’er Afric’s sandy plain,
And wild the tempest howling
Along the billow’d main;
But every danger felt before—
The raging deep, the whirlwind’s roar—
Less dreadful struck me with dismay,
Than what I feel this fatal day.
Oh! let me fly a land that spurns the brave—
Oswego’s dreary shores shall be my grave;
I’ll seek that less inhospitable coast,
And lay my body where my limbs were lost.”
Song.—By a Man.
Old Edward’s sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Crécy’s laurell’d field,
To do thy memory right;
For thine and Britain’s wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish the avenging fight.