"To you, Sir, it was never known
To feel the state which I must own:
No home, not knowing where to go,
How I should act and what to do.
Just as a ship whose rudder's lost,
Nor within sight of any coast;
Without the power to stand the shock
Of tempest, or to shun the rock.
From the strange nature of my birth,
I knew no relative on earth,
Nor to my giddy thoughts was given
To look with any hope to Heaven.
To London I propos'd to go,
Where not a being did I know:
To me it was an unknown shore,
Where I had never been before,
At least, since of all care bereft,
I was a helpless Foundling left.
Thus, as I thought, behold I stood,
Beside a mill-dam's spreading flood; |
The waters form'd to drive the mill
With its tremendous wheel, stood still,
While evening glimmer'd on the hill. | } |
One plunge I said and all is o'er,
My hopes and fears will be no more;
An unknown child, an unknown man,
And I shall end as I began.
Nor can I say what would have follow'd,
I, and my hump, might have been swallow'd
In the deep, wat'ry gulph beneath,
Had I not heard a hautbois breath
A lively, but an uncouth strain,
As it appear'd from rustic swain,
Which, as it dwelt upon my ear,
Told me that merriment was near,
And did at once dispel the gloom
That might have sought a wat'ry tomb.
I turn'd my footsteps tow'rds the sound
That was now heard the valley round;
When soon upon the rural green,
The sight of busy mirth was seen. |
