THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
I seemed transported to another world:--
The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,
Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.
Helpless as sailor cast on desart rock;
Driven by the bombs incessant thunder-stroke
We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.
Roaming the illimitable waters round;
Till all his substance fell into decay.
For never could I hope to meet with such another.
He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;
Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,
Better our dying bodies to obtrude,
And tears that ?owed for ills which patience could not heal.
In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,
Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.
Me and his children hungering in his view:
Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;
By fever, from polluted air incurred,
When market-morning came, the neat attire
In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main.
That lap (their very nourishment!) their brothers blood.
Can I forget what charms did once adorn
One ?eld, a ?ock, and what the neighbouring ?ood
Semblance, with straw and pauniered ass, they made
Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame,
We gazed with terror on the gloomy sleep
By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift,
When the bees hummed, and chair by winter ?re;
No plough their sinews strained; on grating road
Nor yet the crowded ?eet its anchor stirred.
The rude earths tenants, were my ?rst relief:
My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,
(The Woman thus her artless story told)
The bending body of my active sire;
Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.
There foul neglect for months and months we bore,
To join those miserable men he ?ew;
And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,
He must repair, to ply the artists trade.
On as we drove, the equinoctial deep
With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall;
Ravage was made, for which no knell was heard.
Close by my mother in their native bowers:
Well met from far with revelry secure,
My hens rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
Memory, though slow, re99lib•netturned with strength; and thence
Through pastures not his own, the master took;
In depth of forest glade, when jocund June
That we the mercy of the waves should rue.
What tears of bitter grief till then unknown!
Disease and famine, agony and fear,
But, when he had refused the proffered gold,
Ill was I then for toil or service ?t:
And groans, which, as they said, would make a dead man start.
A heavenly silence did the waves invest;
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
A dizzy depth below! his boat and twinkling oar.
And her whom he had loved in joy, he said
A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
Poor Father! gone was every friend of thine:
Is, that I have my inner self abused,
We two had sung, like little birds in May.
But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,--
And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.
In every vale for their delight was stowed:
Can I forget that miserable hour,
The bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor
Then did I try, in vain, the crowds resort,
Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.
In deep despair by frightful wishes stirrd,
Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,
Beat round, to sweep the streets of want and pain.
That on his marriage-day sweet music made?
We talked of marriage and our marriage day;
All perished--all, in one remorseless year,
Of many things which never troubled me;
The impatient mariner the sail unfurld,
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
We reached the western world, a poor, devoted crew.
Protract a curst existence, with the brood
In Wants most lonely cave till death to pine,
Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!
Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,
Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.
How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!
Husband and children! one by one, by sword
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
From the cross timber of an out-house hung;
Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled
www.99lib.netaway:
Now coldly given, now utterly refused,
When sad distress reduced the childrens meal:
By the ?rst beams of dawning light impressd,
Oh! tell me whither--for no earthly friend
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,
All but the bed where his old body lay,
That comes not to the human mourners breast.
All day, my ready tomb the ocean-?ood--
The staff I yet remember which upbore
There, pains which nature could no more support,
In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain:
And in a quiet home once more my father slept.
Peaceful as some immeasurable plain
An honest man by honest parents bred,
Some mighty gulph of separation past,
When we began to tire of childish play
Remote from man, and storms of mortal care,
Here will I weep in peace, (so fancy wrought,)
For all belonged to all, and each was chief.
In barn uplighted, and companions boon
At last my feet a resting-place had found:
Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.
And oft, robbd of my perfect mind, I thought
Of them that perished in the whirlwinds sweep,
The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,
The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,
Thrice happy! that from him the grave did hide
I looked and looked along the silent air,
The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!
Our hopes such harvest of af?iction reap,
To him we turned:--we had no other aid.
And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more, we drew.
That happier days we never more must view:
From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.
There was a youth whom I had loved so long,
In tears, the sun towards that country tend
Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:
All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,
And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled.
And thence was borne away to neighbouring hospital.
To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish tossd,
Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board
Ran mountains--high before the howling blaft.
That when I loved him not I cannot say.
Fondly we wished,www.99lib•net and wished away, nor knew,
He loved his old hereditary nook,
Four years each day with daily bread was blest,
My husbands arms now only served to strain
I could not pray:--through tears that fell in showers,
Have I.--She ceased, and weeping turned away,
And oft of cruelty the sky accused;
His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore
By Derwents side my Fathers cottage stood,
The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;
My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,
And now across this moor my steps I bend--
And Fire from Hell reared his gigantic shape,
All that is dear _in_ being! better far
But soon, with proud parade, the noisy drum
But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!
And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
Glimmerd our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!
With tears whose course no effort could con?ne,
Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.
But ill it suited me, in journey dark
Was weak, nor of the past had memory.
At houses, men, and common light, amazed.
Dizzy my brain, with interruption short
His troubles grew upon him day by day,
To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:
Of hideous sense; I sunk, nor step could crawl,
Green ?elds before us and our native shore,
My father was a good and pious man,
By constant toil and constant prayer supplied.
But, what af?icts my peace with keenest ruth
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
The shriek that from the distant battle broke!
I heard my neighbours, in their beds, complain
Small help, and, after marriage such as mine,
Then rose a mansion proud our woods among,
For them, in natures meads, the milky udder ?owed.
And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?
She wept;--because she had no more to say
No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf
High oer the cliffs I led my ?eecy store,
Like one revived, upon his neck I wept,
--For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,
The very ocean has its hour of rest,
Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch;
Three years a wanderer, often have I viewd,
With thoughtless joy I stretchd along the shore
Of potters wandering on from door to door:
Three lovely infants lay upon my breast;
When stranger passed, so often I have checkd;
Light was my sleep; my days in transport rolld:
And kindred of dead husband are at best
On hazard, or what general bounty yields,
Oer moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch;
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
Recovery came with food: but still, my brain
The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,
With which, though bent on haste, myself I deckd;
Ah! how unlike those late terri?c sleeps!
So passed another day, and so the third:
Fretting the fever round the languid heart,
Of service done with careless cruelty,
To charm the surly house-dogs faithful bark.
It would thy brain unsettle even to hear.
Of looks where common kindness had no part,
The wild brood saw me weep, my fate enquired,
Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
But from delay the summer calms were past.
Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower,
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!
With little kindness would to me incline.
While like a sea the storming army came,
A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.
And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape
And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.
And ear still busy on its nightly watch,
When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
And knew not why. My happy father died
My fathers nets, or watched, when from the fold
The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,
The cowslip-gathering at Mays dewy prime;
And I believe that, soon as I began
Of feet still bustling round with busy glee,
These things just served to stir the torpid sense,
And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.
Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,
My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;
Mid the green mountains many and many a song
And their long holiday that feared not grief,
Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:
We h99lib.netad no hope, and no relief could gain.
As if because her tale was at an end
His father said, that to a distant town
To cruel injuries he became a prey,
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,
No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray
I lived upon the mercy of the ?elds,
Nor to the beggars language could I frame my tongue.
Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,
[2] Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let out todifferent Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary linesdrawn from rock to rock.
By high-way side forgetful would I sit
The ?elds I for my bed have often used:
My heart is touched to think that men like these,
And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke,
Oh! dreadful price of being to resign
The parting signal streamed, at last the land withdrew,
THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
The suns of twenty summers danced along,--
We seemed still more and more to prize each other:
Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill;
Sore traversed in whateer he bought and sold:
And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.
The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;
Twas a hard change, an evil time was come;
At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
The mines dire earthquake, and the pallid host
I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock
And other joys my fancy to allure;
Where looks inhuman dwelt on festering heaps!
And cottage after cottage owned its sway,
His little range of water was denied;[2]
Here watch, of every human friend disowned,
The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peckd.
Mid that long sickness, and those hopes deferrd,
What could I do, unaided and unblest?
What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!
And I in truth did love him like a brother,
How dismal tolled, that night, the city clock!
Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.
For me--farthest from earthly port to roam
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,