GLEANER'S SONG

Dear Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stor'd,

With the joys of some bride, and the wealth of her lord.

Of her chariots and dresses,

And worldly caresses,

And servants that fly when she's waited upon:

But what can she boast if she weds unbelov'd?

Can she e'er feel the joy that one morning I prov'd,

When I put on my new gown and waited for John?

These fields, my dear Ellen, I knew them of yore,

Yet to me they ne'er look'd so enchanting before;

The distant bells ringing,

The birds round us singing,

For pleasure is pure when affection is won;

They told me the troubles and cares of a wife;

But I lov'd him; and that was the pride of my life,

When I put on my new gown and waited for John.

He shouted and ran, as he leapt from the stile;

And what in my bosom was passing the while?

For love knows the blessing

Of ardent caressing,

When virtue inspires us, and doubts are all gone.

The sunshine of Fortune you say is divine;

True love and the sunshine of Nature were mine,

When I put on my new gown and waited for John.

Never could spot be suited less

To bear memorials of distress;

None, cries the sage, more fit is found,

They strike at once a double wound;

Humiliation bids you sigh,

And think of immortality.

Close on the bank, and half o'ergrown,

Beneath a dark wood's soinbrous frown,

A monumental stone appears,

Of one who in his blooming years,

While bathing spurn'd the grassy shore,

And sunk, midst friends, to rise no more;

By parents witness'd — Hark! their shrieks!

The dreadful language horror speaks!

But why in verse attempt to tell

That tale the stone records so well ?