There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;

O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendour vainly shines around.
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,
Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn;
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose,
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;
Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress,
Exposing most, when most it gilds distress.

The poet was put apprentice in his fourteenth year to a surgeon, and afterwards practised in Aldborough; but his prospects were so gloomy, that he abandoned his profession, and proceeded to London as a literary adventurer. His whole stock of money amounted to only three pounds. Having completed some poetical pieces, he offered them for publication, but they were rejected. In the course of the year, however, he issued a poetical epistle, The Candidate, addressed to the authors of the Monthly Review. It

Birthplace of Crabbe,

case of Cowper, came with tardy notice and ungraceful generosity-invited him to breakfast, and at parting presented him with a bank-note for a hundred pounds. Crabbe entered into sacred orders, and was licensed as curate to the rector of his native parish of Aldborough. In a short time, Burke procured for him the situation of chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. This was a great advancement for the poor poet, and he never afterwards was in fear of want. He seems, however, to have felt all the ills 'of dependence on the great, and in his poem of The Patron, and other parts of his writings, has strongly depicted the evils of such a situation. In 1783 appeared The Village, which had been seen and corrected by Johnson and Burke. Its success was instant and complete. Some of the descriptions in the poem-as that of the parish workhouse-were copied into all the periodicals, and took that place in our national literature which they still retain. Thurlow presented him with two small livings then in his gift, telling him at the same time, with an oath, that he was as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen. The poet now married a young lady of Suffolk, the object of an early attachment, and taking the curacy of Stathern, adjoining Belvoir Castle, he bade adieu to the ducal mansion, and transferred himself to the humble parsonage in the village. Four happy years were spent in this retirement, when the poet obtained the exchange of his two small livings in Dorsetshire for two of superior value in the vale of Belvoir. Crabbe remained silent as a poet for many years. 'Out of doors,' says his son, he had always some object in view-a flower, or a pebble, or his note-book in his hand; and in the house, if he was not writing, he was reading. He read aloud very often, even when walking, or seated by the side of his wife in the huge old-fashioned one-horse chaise, heavier than a modern chariot, in which they usually were conveyed in their little excursions, and

the conduct of which he, from awkwardness and absence of mind, prudently relinquished to my mother on all occasions.' In 1807 he published his Parish Register, which had been previously submitted to Mr Fox, and parts of this poem-especially the story of Phoebe Dawson-were the last compositions of their kind that 'engaged and amused the capacious, the candid, the benevolent mind of this great man.' The success of this work was not only decided, but nearly unprecedented. In 1810 he came forward with The Borough, a poem of the same class, and more connected and complete; and two years afterwards he produced his Tales in Verse, containing perhaps the finest of all his humble but happy delineations of life and character. "The public voice,' says his biographer, 'was again highly favourable, and some of these relations were spoken of with the utmost warmth of commendation, as, The Parting Hour, The Patron, Edward Shore, and The Confidant.' In 1814, the Duke of Rutland appointed him to the living of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, and he went thither to reside. His income amounted to about £800 per annum, a large portion of which he spent in charity. He still continued his attachment to literature, and in 1817 and 1818 was engaged on his last great work, the Tales of the Hall. He fancied that autumn was, on the whole, the most favourable season for him in the composition of poetry; but there was something in the effect of a sudden fall of snow that appeared to stimulate him in a very extraordinary manner.' In 1819, the Tales were published by Mr Murray, who, for them and the remaining copyright of all Crabbe's previous poems, gave the munificent sum of £3000. In an account of the negotiation for the sale of these copyrights, written by Moore for the life of his brother-poet, we have the following amusing illustration of Crabbe's simplicity of manner: 'When he received the bills for £3000, we-Moore and Rogers -earnestly advised that he should, without delay, deposit them in some safe hands; but no-he must "take them with him to Trowbridge, and shew them to his son John. They would hardly believe in his good-luck at home if they did not see the bills." On his way down to Trowbridge, a friend at Salisbury, at whose house he rested-Mr Everett, the banker-seeing that he carried these bills loosely in his waistcoat pocket, requested to be allowed to take charge of them for him; but with equal ill success. "There was no fear,” he said, “of his losing them, and he must shew them to his son John." Another poetical friend, Thomas Campbell, who met him at this time in London, remarks of him: His mildness in literary argument struck me with surprise in so stern a poet of nature, and I could not but contrast the unassumingness of his manners with the originality of his powers. In what may be called the ready-money small-talk of conversation, his facility might not perhaps seem equal to the known calibre of his talents; but in the progress of conversation, I recollect remarking that there was a vigilant shrewdness that almost eluded you, by keeping its watch so quietly.' This fine remark is characteristic of Crabbe's genius, as well as of his manners. It gathered its materials slowly and silently with intent but unobtrusive observation. The Tales of the Hall were received with that pleasure and approbation due to an old and established favourite, but with less enthusiasm than some of his previous works. In 1822, the now venerable poet paid a visit to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh; and it is worthy of remark, that, as to the city itself, he soon got wearied of the New Town, but could amuse himself for ever

in the Old. His latter years were spent in the discharge of his clerical duties, and in the enjoyment of social intercourse. His attachment to botany and geology seemed to increase with age; and at threescore and ten, he was busy, cheerful, and affectionate. His death took place at Trowbridge on the 3d of February 1832, and his parishioners erected a monument to his memory in the church of that place, where he had officiated for nineteen years. A complete collection of his works, with some new pieces and an admirable memoir, was published in 1834 by his son, the Rev. G. Crabbe. The Village, Parish Register, and shorter tales of Crabbe are his most popular productions. The Tales of the Hall are less interesting. They relate principally to the higher classes of society, and the poet was not so happy in describing their peculiarities as when supporting his character of the poet of the poor. Some of the episodes, however, are in his best style-Sir Owen Dale, Ruth, Ellen, and other stories, are all marked with the peculiar genius of Crabbe. The redeeming and distinguishing feature of that genius was its fidelity to nature, even when it was dull and unprepossessing. His power of observation and description might be limited, but his pictures have all the force of dramatic representation, and may be compared to those actual and existing models which the sculptor or painter works from, instead of vague and general conceptions. They are often too true, and human nature being exhibited in its naked reality, with all its defects, and not through the bright and alluring medium of romance or imagination, our vanity is shocked, and our pride mortified. His anatomy of character and passion harrows up our feelings, and leaves us in the end sad and ashamed of our common nature. The personal circumstances and experience of the poet affected the bent of his genius. He knew how untrue and absurd were the pictures of rural life which figured in poetry. His own youth was dark and painful-spent in low society, amidst want and misery, irascible gloom and passion. Latterly, he had more of the comforts and elegances of social life at his command than Cowper, his rival as a domestic painter. He not only could have 'wheeled his sofa round,' 'let fall the curtains, and, with the bubbling and loud hissing urn' on the table, 'welcome peaceful evening in,' but the amenities of refined and intellectual society were constantly present with him, or at his call. Yet he did not, like Cowper, attempt to describe them, or to paint their manifold charms. When he took up his pen, his mind turned to Aldborough and its wild amphibious race-to the parish workhouse, where the wheel hummed doleful through the day-to erring damsels and luckless swains, the prey of overseers or justices-or to the haunts of desperate poachers and smugglers, gipsies and gamblers, where vice and misery stalked undisguised in their darkest forms. He stirred up the dregs of human society, and exhibited their blackness and deformity, yet worked them into poetry. Like his own Sir Richard Monday, he never forgot the parish. It is true that village-life in England in its worst form, with the old poor and game laws and non-resident clergy, was composed of various materials, some bright and some gloomy, and Crabbe drew them all. His Isaac Ashford is as honourable to the lowly English poor as the Jeanie Deans or Dandie Dinmont of Scott are to the Scottish character. His story of the real mourner, the faithful maid who watched over her dying sailor, is a beautiful tribute to the force and purity of humble affection. In The Parting Hour and The

Patron are also passages equally honourable to the poor and middle classes, and full of pathetic and graceful composition. It must be confessed, however, that Crabbe was in general a gloomy painter of life-that he was fond of depicting the unlovely and unamiable-and that, either for poetic effect or from painful experience, he makes the bad of life predominate over the good. His pathos and tenderness are generally linked to something coarse, startling, or humiliating-to disappointed hopes or unavailing sorrow—

Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.

The minuteness with which he dwells on such subjects sometimes makes his descriptions tedious, and apparently unfeeling. He drags forward every defect, every vice and failing, not for the purpose of educing something good out of the evil, but, as it would seem, merely for the purpose of completing the picture. In his higher flights, where scenes of strong passion, vice or remorse, are depicted, Crabbe is a moral poet, purifying the heart, as the object of tragedy has been defined, by terror and pity, and by fearful delineations of the misery and desolation caused by unbridled passion. His story of Sir Eustace Grey is a domestic tragedy of this kind, related with almost terrific power, and with lyrical energy of versification. His general style of versification is the couplet of Pope-he has been wittily called 'Pope in worsted stockings'-but less flowing and melodious, and often ending in points and quibbles. Thus, in describing his cottage furniture, he says

No wheels are here for either wool or flax,
But packs of cards made up of sundry packs.

His thrifty housewife, Widow Goe, falls down in sickness

Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys.

This jingling style heightens the effect of his humorous and homely descriptions; but it is too much of a manner, and mars the finer passages. Crabbe has high merit as a painter of English scenery. He is here as original and forcible as in delineating character. His marine landscapes are peculiarly fresh and striking; and he invests even the sterile fens and barren sands with interest. His objects are seldom picturesque; but he noted every weed and plant-the purple bloom of the heath, the dwarfish flowers among the wild gorse, the slender grass of the sheep-walk, and even the pebbles, sea-weed, and shells amid

The glittering waters on the shingles rolled.

He was a great lover of the sea, and once, as his son relates, after being some time absent from it, mounted his horse and rode alone sixty miles from his house, that he might inhale its freshness and gaze upon its waters.

[The Parish Workhouse and Apothecary.]
[From The Village.]

Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives and mothers never wed,
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;

The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they !
The moping idiot and the madman gay.

Here too the sick their final doom receive,
Here brought amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
Mixed with the clamours of the crowd below;
Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.
Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye, to read the distant glance;
Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease,
To name the nameless ever-new disease;
Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain and that alone can cure;
How would ye bear in real pain to lie,
Despised, neglected, left alone to die?
How would ye bear to draw your latest breath
Where all that's wretched pave the way for death?
Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between ;
Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day:
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Or promise hope till sickness wears a smile.
But soon a loud and hasty summons calls,
Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls;
Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,

All pride and business, bustle and conceit,
With looks unaltered by these scenes of woe,
With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go;
He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
And carries fate and physic in his eye;
A potent quack, long versed in human ills,
Who first insults the victim whom he kills;
Whose murderous hand a drowsy bench protect,
And whose most tender mercy is neglect.

Paid by the parish for attendance here,
He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer;
In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies,
Impatience marked in his averted eyes;
And, some habitual queries hurried o'er,
Without reply, he rushes on the door;
His drooping patient, long inured to pain,
And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain;
He ceases now the feeble help to crave
Of man; and silent sinks into the grave.

[Isaac Ashford, a Noble Peasant.] [From the Parish Register.] Next to these ladies, but in nought allied, A noble peasant, Isaac Ashford, died. Noble he was, contemning all things mean, His truth unquestioned and his soul serene: Of no man's presence Isaac felt afraid; At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed: Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace; Truth, simple truth, was written in his face; Yet while the serious thought his soul approved, Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved; To bliss domestic he his heart resigned, And with the firmest, had the fondest mind: Were others joyful, he looked smiling on, And gave allowance where he needed none;

Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh;
A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distressed-
Bane of the poor! it wounds their weaker mind
To miss one favour which their neighbours find-
Yet far was he from stoic pride removed;
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved:
I marked his action when his infant died,
And his old neighbour for offence was tried;
The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity plainer than the tongue can speak.
If pride were his, 'twas not their vulgar pride,
Who, in their base contempt, the great deride;
Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few:
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtuous labours trained;
Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,
In fact, a noble passion, misnamed pride.

He had no party's rage, no sect'ry's whim;
Christian and countryman was all with him;
True to his church he came; no Sunday-shower
Kept him at home in that important hour;
Nor his firm feet could one persuading sect
By the strong glare of their new light direct;
'On hope, in mine own sober light, I gaze,
But should be blind and lose it in your blaze.'

In times severe, when many a sturdy swain
Felt it his pride, his comfort to complain,
Isaac their wants would soothe, his own would hide,
And feel in that his comfort and his pride.

At length he found, when seventy years were run, His strength departed and his labour done; When, save his honest fame, he kept no more; But lost his wife and saw his children poor; 'Twas then a spark of-say not discontentStruck on his mind, and thus he gave it vent: 'Kind are your laws-'tis not to be deniedThat in yon house for ruined age provide, And they are just; when young, we give you all, And then for comforts in our weakness call. Why then this proud reluctance to be fed, To join your poor and eat the parish bread? But yet I linger, loath with him to feed Who gains his plenty by the sons of need: He who, by contract, all your paupers took, And gauges stomachs with an anxious look: On some old master I could well depend; See him with joy, and thank him as a friend; But ill on him who doles the day's supply, And counts our chances who at night may die: Yet help me, Heaven! and let me not complain Of what befalls me, but the fate sustain.'

Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew; Daily he placed the workhouse in his view! But came not there, for sudden was his fate, He dropt expiring at his cottage-gate.

I feel his absence in the hours of prayer, And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there; I see no more those white locks thinly spread Round the bald polish of that honoured head; No more that awful glance on playful wight Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight; To fold his fingers all in dread the while, Till Mister Ashford softened to a smile; No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer, Nor the pure faith-to give it force-are there : But he is blest, and I lament no more, A wise good man contented to be poor.

[Phabe Dawson.]

[From the Parish Register.]

Two summers since, I saw at Lammas fair, The sweetest flower that ever blossomed there; When Phoebe Dawson gaily crossed the green, In haste to see and happy to be seen; Her air, her manners, all who saw, admired, Courteous though coy, and gentle though retired; The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed, And ease of heart her every look conveyed; A native skill her simple robes expressed, As with untutored elegance she dressed; The lads around admired so fair a sight, And Phoebe felt, and felt she gave, delight. Admirers soon of every age she gained, Her beauty won them and her worth retained; Envy itself could no contempt display, They wished her well, whom yet they wished away; Correct in thought, she judged a servant's place Preserved a rustic beauty from disgrace; But yet on Sunday-eve, in freedom's hour, With secret joy she felt that beauty's power; When some proud bliss upon the heart would steal, That, poor or rich, a beauty still must feel.

At length, the youth ordained to move her breast,
Before the swains with bolder spirit pressed;
With looks less timid made his passion known,
And pleased by manners, most unlike her own;
Loud though in love, and confident though young;
Fierce in his air, and voluble of tongue;
By trade a tailor, though, in scorn of trade,
He served the squire, and brushed the coat he made;
Yet now, would Phoebe her consent afford,
Her slave alone, again he 'd mount the board;
With her should years of growing love be spent,
And growing wealth: she sighed and looked consent.
Now, through the lane, up hill, and cross the green--
Seen by but few, and blushing to be seen-
Dejected, thoughtful, anxious, and afraid-
Led by the lover, walked the silent maid:
Slow through the meadows roved they many a mile,
Toyed by each bank and trifled at each stile;
Where, as he painted every blissful view,
And highly coloured what he strongly drew,
The pensive damsel, prone to tender fears,
Dimmed the false prospect with prophetic tears:
Thus passed the allotted hours, till, lingering late,
The lover loitered at the master's gate;

There he pronounced adieu! and yet would stay,
Till chidden-soothed-entreated-forced away!
He would of coldness, though indulged, complain,
And oft retire and oft return again;
When, if his teasing vexed her gentle mind,
The grief assumed compelled her to be kind!
For he would proof of plighted kindness crave,
That she resented first, and then forgave,
And to his grief and penance yielded more
Than his presumption had required before :

Ah! fly temptation, youth; refrain ! refrain!
Each yielding maid and each presuming swain!
Lo! now with red rent cloak and bonnet black,
And torn green gown loose hanging at her back,
One who an infant in her arms sustains,

And seems in patience striving with her pains;
Pinched are her looks, as one who pines for bread,
Whose cares are growing and whose hopes are fled;
Pale her parched lips, her heavy eyes sunk low,
And tears unnoticed from their channels flow;
Serene her manner, till some sudden pain
Frets the meek soul, and then she's calm again;
Her broken pitcher to the pool she takes,
And every step with cautious terror makes;
For not alone that infant in her arms,
But nearer cause her anxious soul alarms;

With water burdened then she picks her way,
Slowly and cautious, in the clinging clay;
Till, in mid-green, she trusts a place unsound,
And deeply plunges in the adhesive ground;
Thence, but with pain, her slender foot she takes,
While hope the mind as strength the frame forsakes;
For when so full the cup of sorrow grows,
Add but a drop, it instantly o'erflows.
And now her path but not her peace she gains,
Safe from her task, but shivering with her pains;
Her home she reaches, open leaves the door,
And placing first her infant on the floor,
She bares her bosom to the wind, and sits,
And sobbing struggles with the rising fits;
In vain, they come, she feels the inflating grief,
That shuts the swelling bosom from relief;
That speaks in feeble cries a soul distressed,
Or the sad laugh that cannot be repressed;
The neighbour-matron leaves her wheel, and flies
With all the aid her poverty supplies;
Unfee'd, the calls of nature she obeys,
Not led by profit, not allured by praise;
And waiting long, till these contentions cease,
She speaks of comfort, and departs in peace.

Friend of distress! the mourner feels thy aid,
She cannot pay thee, but thou wilt be paid.

But who this child of weakness, want, and care?
'Tis Phoebe Dawson, pride of Lammas fair;
Who took her lover for his sparkling eyes,
Expressions warm, and love-inspiring lies:
Compassion first assailed her gentle heart
For all his suffering, all his bosom's smart:
'And then his prayers! they would a savage move,
And win the coldest of the sex to love:'
But ah! too soon his looks success declared,
Too late her loss the marriage-rite repaired;
The faithless flatterer then his vows forgot,
A captious tyrant or a noisy sot:

If present, railing till he saw her pained;
If absent, spending what their labours gained;
Till that fair form in want and sickness pined,
And hope and comfort fled that gentle mind.

Then fly temptation, youth; resist! refrain!
Nor let me preach for ever and in vain!

[Dream of the Condemned Felon.]

[From The Borough.]

Yes! e'en in sleep the impressions all remain,
He hears the sentence and he feels the chain;
He sees the judge and jury when he shakes,
And loudly cries, 'Not guilty,' and awakes:
Then chilling tremblings o'er his body creep,
Till worn-out nature is compelled to sleep.

Now comes the dream again: it shews each scene,
With each small circumstance that comes between-
The call to suffering, and the very deed-
There crowds go with him, follow, and precede;
Some heartless shout, some pity, all condemn,
While he in fancied envy looks at them;
He seems the place for that sad act to see,
And dreams the very thirst which then will be;
A priest attends-it seems the one he knew
In his best days, beneath whose care he grew.
At this his terrors take a sudden flight;
He sees his native village with delight;
The house, the chamber, where he once arrayed
His youthful person, where he knelt and prayed;
Then, too, the comforts he enjoyed at home,
The days of joy; the joys themselves are come;
The hours of innocence, the timid look
Of his loved maid, when first her hand he took
And told his hope; her trembling joy appears,
Her forced reserve, and his retreating fears.
All now are present-'tis a moment's gleam
Of former sunshine-stay, delightful dream!

270

Let him within his pleasant garden walk, Give him her arm, of blessings let them talk.

Yes! all are with him now, and all the while
Life's early prospects and his Fanny's smile;
Then come his sister and his village friend,
And he will now the sweetest moments spend
Life has to yield: no, never will he find
Again on earth such pleasure in his mind:
He goes through shrubby walks these friends among,
Love in their looks and honour on the tongue;
Nay, there's a charm beyond what nature shews,
The bloom is softer, and more sweetly glows;
Pierced by no crime, and urged by no desire
For more than true and honest hearts require,
They feel the calm delight, and thus proceed
Through the green lane, then linger in the mead,
Stray o'er the heath in all its purple bloom,
And pluck the blossom where the wild-bees hum;
Then through the broomy bound with ease they pass,
And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass,
Where dwarfish flowers among the gorse are spread,
And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed;
Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way
O'er its rough bridge, and there behold the bay;
The ocean smiling to the fervid sun,

The waves that faintly fall, and slowly run,
The ships at distance, and the boats at hand;
And now they walk upon the sea-side sand,
Counting the number, and what kind they be,
Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea;
Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold
The glittering waters on the shingles rolled :
The timid girls, half dreading their design,
Dip the small foot in the retarded brine,
And search for crimson weeds, which spreading flow,
Or lie like pictures on the sand below;
With all those bright red pebbles that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon;
And those live lucid jellies which the eye
Delights to trace as they swim glittering by;
Pearl shells and rubied star-fish they admire,
And will arrange above the parlour fire.
Tokens of bliss! Oh, horrible! a wave
Roars as it rises-save me, Edward, save!'
She cries. Alas! the watchman on his way
Calls, and lets in-truth, terror, and the day!

[Story of a Betrothed Pair in Humble Life.]
[From The Borough.]

Yes, there are real mourners; I have seen
A fair sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene;
Attention through the day her duties claimed,
And to be useful as resigned she aimed;
Neatly she dressed, nor vainly seemed to expect
Pity for grief, or pardon for neglect;
But when her wearied parents sunk to sleep,
She sought her place to meditate and weep:
Then to her mind was all the past displayed,
That faithful memory brings to sorrow's aid;
For then she thought on one regretted youth,
Her tender trust, and his unquestioned truth;
In every place she wandered where they'd been,
And sadly sacred held the parting scene
Where last for sea he took his leave-that place
With double interest would she nightly trace;
For long the courtship was, and he would say
Each time he sailed: "This once, and then the day;'
Yet prudence tarried, but when last he went,
He drew from pitying love a full consent.

Happy he sailed, and great the care she took
That he should softly sleep, and smartly look;
White was his better linen, and his check
Was made more trim than any on the deck;
And every comfort men at sea can know,
Was hers to buy, to make, and to bestow;