Here then we make a pause to ask
How Fortune will achieve its task,
And, to indulge the curious view,
What track the Fancy must pursue,
From such a change in the affairs
Of the poor Foundling on the stairs.
Whether the passions active strife
Will check repose and trouble life;
Whether the inmate of his breast
Will lead to turbulence or rest,
Make him repose beneath the shade
At ease and indolently laid;
Whether the mind will yield to pleasure
In that seducing form and measure,
Which strews temptations ev'ry hour
And gold commands with ready power:
—But other notions we had brought
The proofs of our prophetic thought;
That, not without a gleam of pride,
He would chuse Reason for his guide.
When with a plenteous income arm'd
And hospitable bosom warm'd,
He from the gay world would retire
And turn into a Country 'Squire;
Then, with those charms which heighten life,
And blossom in a pleasing wife, |
Enjoy that calm and tranquil state
That does on Independence wait,
Nor spurns the low, nor courts the great: | } |
And though not from those frailties free
The Lot of man's infirmity,
He might pass on to rev'rend age,
And die a Christian and a sage.
—Thus we our Hero's picture drew
As hope inspir'd, for future view,
Such as the coming years might see,
Such as we hop'd that he would be.
But soon appear'd a threat'ning storm
That did the expected scene deform,
And many a cloud began to lour
That veils the intellectual hour,
Though gleams of light would oft controul
The darksome chaos of the soul:
And a bright, instantaneous ray
Would gild a cloud and chear the day;
And now and then a serious thought
Was to its proper object brought.
Whene'er, oppress'd with sudden gloom,
In solemn steps he pac'd the room;
Then, his looks beaming with content,
He turn'd to Joy and Merriment,
And Reason, for a wav'ring hour,
Would seem to re-assume its power.
Yet social habits he disclaim'd,
Wept when he prais'd, laugh'd when he blam'd,
And, sometimes frowning, would declare
Life was not worth the liver's care.
—Whether it was the sudden change,
So unexpected and so strange,
Or the accession large of wealth
Broke in upon his reason's health, |
Or the concussion of his brain
Which the night's frolic did sustain,
Our science knows not to explain. | } |
Old Betty thought it must be Love,
Which she would undertake to prove,
As in his freaks that seem'd like folly
He sung and danc'd and talk'd of Molly,
And frequently was seen to scrawl
Figures in chalk upon the wall,
Then fancy that he scatter'd flowers
And sat in gay and fragrant bowers. |
—Whate'er the hidden cause might be,
No sage experience could foresee
A cure for his Infirmity. | } |
He now grew worse from day to day,
And Nature hasten'd to decay:
It soon was seen, no art could save
Quæ Genus from an early grave.
—Old Vellum did not quit his care
And Betty Broom was always there.
The Foundling's Life she had attended,
As it began, and as it ended:
His earliest days her cares embrac'd,
Her aged eyes wept o'er his last:
They did his dying hour behold!
—Reader Farewell,——The Story's told! |
