THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
By Derwents side my Fathers cottage stood,
(The Woman thus her artless story told)
One ?eld, a ?ock, and what the neighb ?ood
Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.
Light was my sleep; my days in transport rolld:
With thoughtless joy I stretchd along the shore
My fathers s, or watched, when from the fold
High oer the cliffs I led my ?eecy store,
A dizzy depth below! his boat and twinkling oar.
My father was a good and pious man,
An ho man by ho parents bred,
And I believe that, soon as I began
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
For books in every neighb house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
I fet what charms did once adorn
My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,
And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?
The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;
The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;
My hens riest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering at Mays dewy prime;
The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,
From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.
The staff I yet remember which upbore
The bending body of my active sire;
His seat beh the honeyed sycamore
When the bees hummed, and chair by winter ?re;
When market-m came, the attire
With which, though bent on haste, myself I deckd;
My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,
When stranger passed, so often I have checkd;
The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peckd.
The suns of twenty summers danced along,--
Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:
Then rose a mansion proud our woods among,
And cottage after cottage ows sway,
No joy to see a neighb house, or stray
Through pastures not his own, the master took;
My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;
He loved his old hereditary nook,
And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.
But, when he had refused the prold,
To cruel injuries he became a prey,
Sore traversed in whateer he bought and sold:
His troubles grew upon him day by day,
Till all his substance fell into decay.
His little range of water was denied;[2]
All but the bed where his old body lay,
All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,
We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.
I fet that miserable hour,
When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower,
That on his marriage-day sweet music made?
Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,
Close by my mother in their native bowers:
Biddirust in God, he stood and prayed,--
I could not pray:--through tears that fell in showers,
Glimmerd our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!
There was a youth whom I had loved so long,
That when I loved him not I ot say.
Mid the green mountains many and many a song
We two had sung, like little birds in May.
When we began to tire of childish play
We seemed still more and more to prize each other:
We talked of marriage and our marriage day;
And I in truth d