G.Your ladyship knows well
You ask of one who has lived to study truth
From nature’s only teacher;—without which
I would not speak. But since you have often heard
Your sainted mother tell from what sad cause
She made my Laura your adopted sister,
Saving my orphan in the only loss
That can befall a babe, its mother’s care,
You know how by that loss there came to me
The chiefest pain of love; which can, I think,