For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.
Alike, if folly or misfortune brought
Those last of woes his evil days have wrought;
Believe with social mercy and with me,
Folly's misfortune in the first degree.
Perhaps on some inhospitable shore
The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore;
Who then, no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears!
THE gypsy-race my pity rarely move;
Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love.
Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more;
Nor his firm phalanx of the common shore.
For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves
The tawny father with his offspring roves;
When summer suns lead slow the sultry day,
In mossy caves, where welling waters play,
Fann'd by each gale that cools the fervid sky,
With this in ragged luxury they lie.
Oft at the sun the dusky Elfins strain
The sable eye, then snugging, sleep again;
Oft as the dews of cooler evening fall,
For their prophetic mother's mantle call.
Far other cares that wand'ring mother wait,
The mouth, and oft the minister of fate!
From her to hear, in ev'ning's friendly shade,
Of future fortune, flies the village-maid,
Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold,
And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.
But, ah! ye maids, beware the gypsy's lures! She opens not the womb of time, but yours. Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung, Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung! The parson's maid-sore cause had she to rue The gypsy's tongue; the parson's daughter too. Long had that anxious daughter sigh'd to know What Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau, Meant by those glances which at church he stole, Her father nodding to the psalm's slow drawl; Long had she sigh'd; at length a prophet came, By many a sure prediction known to fame, To Marian known, and all she told, for true: She knew the future, for the past she knew.
Appeal for the industrious Poor-Rapacity of Clerks and Overseers Scene of actual misery, which the Author had witnessed.
BUT still, forgot the grandeur of thy reign,
Descend to duties meaner crowns disdain;
That worst excrescency of power forego,
That pride of kings, humanity's first foe.
Let age no longer toil with feeble strife,
Worn by long service in the war of life;
Nor leave the head, that time hath whiten'd, bare
To the rude insults of the searching air;
Nor bid the knee, by labour harden'd, bend,
O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend!
If, when from heav'n severer seasons fall,
Fled from the frozen roof and mouldering wall,
Each face the picture of a winter day,
More strong than Teniers' pencil could pourtray;
If then to thee resort the shivering train,
Of cruel days, and cruel man complain,
Say to thy heart (remembering him who said)
"These people come from far, and have no bread.”
Nor leave thy venal clerk empower'd to hear;
The voice of want is sacred to thy ear.
He where no fees his sordid pen invite,
Sports with their tears, too indolent to write;
Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain
To hear more helpless animals complain.
But chief thy notice shall one monster claim;
A monster furnish'd with a human frame,
The parish-officer!-though verse disdain
Terms that deform the splendour of the strain;
It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe
On the sly, pilfering, cruel, overseer;
The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust,
Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust!
When the poor hind, with length of years decay'd, Leans feebly on his once subduing spade, Forgot the service of his abler days,
His profitable toil, and honest praise,
Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread,
This slave, whose board his former labours spread?
When harvest's burning suns and sickening air
From labour's unbrac'd hand the grasp'd hook tear,
Where shall the helpless family be fed,
That vainly languish for a father's bread?
See the pale mother, sunk with grief and care,
To the proud farmer fearfully repair;
Soon to be sent with insolence away,
Referr'd to vestries, and a distant day!
Referr'd-to perish!-Is my verse severe ?
Unfriendly to the human character?
Ah! to this sigh of sad experience trust:
The truth is rigid, but the tale is just.
If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear,
Think not that patience were a virtue here.
His low-born pride with honest rage controul;
Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul.
But, hapless! oft through fear of future woe,
And certain vengeance of th' insulting foe,
Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their pray❜r,
The last extremes of penury they bear.
Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office higher,
To something more than magistrate aspire?
And, left each poorer, pettier chase behind,
Step nobly forth, the friend of human kind?
The game I start courageously pursue!
Adieu to fear! to insolence adieu!
And first we'll range this mountain's stormy side, Where the rude winds the shepherd's roof de
As meet no more the wint'ry blast to bear,
And all the wild hostilities of air.
-That roof have I remember'd many a year;
It once gave refuge to a hunted deer-
Here, in those days, we found an aged pair;-
But time untenants-hah! what seest thou there?
"Horror!-by Heav'n, extended on a bed
"Of naked fearn, two human creatures dead!
Embracing as alive!—ah, no !—no life!
"Cold, breathless!"
'Tis the shepherd and his wife. I knew the scene, and brought thee to behold What speaks more strongly than the story told. They died through want
"By every power I swear,
"If the wretch treads the earth, or breathes the
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