REMEMBRANCE. The remembrance of Youth is a sigh. ALL. MAN hath a weary pilgrimage And still remembers with a sigh To school the little exile goes, What then shall soothe his earliest woes, Restraints which no rewards repay, From hard controul and tyrant rules, Youth comes; the toils and cares of life Torment the restless mind; Where shall the tired and harass'd heart Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells, Maturer Manhood now arrives, So reaches he the latter stage Life's vain delusions are gone by Its idle hopes are o'er, Yet age remembers with a sigh. Westbury, 1798. THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. DACTYLICS. WEARY way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart, one! Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed, Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back, Meagre and livid and screaming for misery. • Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony, As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe, Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy hagged face. Ne'er will thy husband return from the war again, This Stanza was written by S. T COLERIDGE. THE WIDOW. SAPPHICS. COLD was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell, Wide were the downs and shelterless-and naked, When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey, Weary and way-sore. Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflections; Fast o'er the heath a chariot rattled by her, Pity me, strangers! lest with cold and hunger "Once I had friends, though now by all forsaken! "I had a home once-I had once a husband- Then on the snow she laid her down to rest her; She heard a horseman, "Pity me!" she groan'd out; Loud was the wind, unheard was her complaining, On went the horseman Worn out with anguish, toil and cold and hunger, Down sunk the Wanderer, sleep had seized her senses; There did the traveller find her in the morning; GOD had released her. Bristol, 1795. |