All sons it surely would appal,
Except the passing meek,
To see a father lose his all,
And from an independence fall
To one pound ten a week!
But Jupp shook off this sorrow’s weight,
And, like a Christian son,
Proved Poverty a happy fate—
Proved Wealth to be a devil’s bait,
To lure poor sinners on.
With other sorrows Bernard coped,
For sorrows came in packs;
His cousins with their housemaids sloped—
His uncles forged—his aunts eloped—
His sisters married blacks.
But Bernard, far from murmuring
(Exemplar, friends, to us),
Determined to his faith to cling,—
He made the best of everything,
And argued softly thus:
“’Twere harsh my uncles’ forging knack
Too rudely to condemn—
My aunts, repentant, may come back,
And blacks are nothing like as black
As people colour them!”
Still Fate, with many a sorrow rife,
Maintained relentless fight:
His grandmamma next lost her life,
Then died the mother of his wife,
But still he seemed all right.
His brother fond (the only link
To life that bound him now)
One morning, overcome by drink,
He broke his leg (the right, I think)
In some disgraceful row.
But did my Bernard swear and curse?
Oh no—to murmur loth,
He only said, “Go, get a nurse:
Be thankful that it isn’t worse;
You might have broken both!”
But worms who watch without concern
The cockchafer on thorns,
Or beetles smashed, themselves will turn
If, walking through the slippery fern,
You tread upon their corns.
One night as Bernard made his track
Through Brompton home to bed,
A footpad, with a vizor black,
Took watch and purse, and dealt a crack
On Bernard’s saint-like head.