A Tale of Society As It Is: From Facts, 1811
Lines:80Movement:Romanticism
She was an aged woman; and the yearsWhich she had numbered on her toilsome wayHad bowed her natural powers to decay.She was an aged woman; yet the rayWhich faintly glimmered through her starting tears,Pressed into light by silent misery,Hath soul's imperishable energy.She was a cripple, and incapableTo add one mite to gold-fed luxury:And therefore did her spirit dimly feelThat poverty, the crime of tainting stain,Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again. One only son's love had supported her.She long had struggled with infirmity,Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the childFor his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield--Bend to another's will--become a thingMore senseless than the sword of battlefield--Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting;And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring. For seven years did this poor woman liveIn unparticipated solitude.Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rudePicking the scattered remnants of its wood.If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.The gleanings of precarious charityHer scantiness of food did scarce supply.The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dweltWithin her ghastly hollowness of eye:Each arrow of the season's change she felt.Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,One only hope: it was--once more to see her son. It was an eve of June, when every starSpoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eveWhen first her soul began indeed to grieve:Then he was here; now he is very far.The sweetness of the balmy eveningA sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling,Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear:A balm was in the poison of the sting.This aged sufferer for many a yearHad never felt such comfort. She suppressedA sigh--and turning round, clasped William to her breast! And, though his form was wasted by the woeWhich tyrants on their victims love to wreak,Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheekOf slavery's violence and scorn did speak,Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow.The vital fire seemed re-illumed withinBy this sweet unexpected welcoming.Oh, consummation of the fondest hopeThat ever soared on Fancy's wildest wing!Oh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,When THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they! Her son, compelled, the country's foes had fought,Had bled in battle; and the stern controlWhich ruled his sinews and coerced his soulUtterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl,And unsubduable evils on him brought.He was the shadow of the lusty childWho, when the time of summer season smiled,Did earn for her a meal of honesty,And with affectionate discourse beguiledThe keen attacks of pain and poverty;Till Power, as envying her this only joy,From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy. And now cold charity's unwelcome doleWas insufficient to support the pair;And they would perish rather than would bearThe law's stern slavery, and the insolent stareWith which law loves to rend the poor man's soul--The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noiseOf heartless mirth which women, men, and boysWake in this scene of legal misery. ...