Lost sight of, despaired of, almost forgotten, and then at last,
When least expected—although there’s scarce a soul in the house
That does not know or guess it beforehand—she reappears.
Then are not all eyes wet? Why, that’s the poetic art,
Which makes emotion, and sells it to fools at market price.
You have pitied the child, have pictured the thousand possible ills
She may have encountered, hardships of body and mind, neglect,
The injuries and privations of slavery, wrongs and blows;
The lack of all that care, to which, in a mother’s love,
The meanest birth is titled, without which even brutes