Chapter XIII: Part II

Quondam ridentes oculi, nunc fonte perenni
Deplorant poenas nocte dieque suas.

_Corn. Galli_ [Maximiniani (Pseudo-Galli)] _Eleg._ [I. vv. 137-8.]

MAGISTRATE.

Come, now again thy woes impart,
Tell all thy sorrows, all thy sin;
We cannot heal the throbbing heart
Till we discern the wounds within.

Compunction weeps our guilt away,
The sinner's safety is his pain;
Such pangs for our offences pay,
And these severer griefs are gain.

VAGRANT.

The son came back--he found us wed;
Then dreadful was the oath he swore;-- 10
His way through Blackburn Forest led;--
His father we beheld no more.

Of all our daring clan not one
Would on the doubtful subject dwell;
For all esteem'd the injured son,
And fear'd the tale which he could tell.

But I had mightier cause for fear;
For slow and mournful round my bed
I saw a dreadful form appear--
It came when I and Aaron wed. 20

(Yes! we were wed, I know my crime,--
We slept beneath the [elmen] tree;
But I was grieving all the time,
And Aaron frown'd my tears to see.

For he not yet had felt the pain
That rankles in a wounded breast;
He waked to sin, then slept again,
Forsook his God, yet took his rest.--

But I was forced to feign delight,
And joy in mirth and music sought; 30
And mem'ry now recalls the night,
With such surprise and horror fraught,
That reason felt a moment's flight,
And left a mind to madness wrought.)

When waking, on my heaving breast
I felt a hand as cold as death;
A sudden fear my voice suppress'd,
A chilling terror stopp'd my breath.--

I seem'd--no words can utter how!
For there my father-husband stood-- 40
And thus he said:--"Will God allow,
"The great avenger, just and good,
A wife to break her marriage vow,
A son to shed his father's blood?"

I trembled at the dismal sounds,
But vainly strove a word to say;
So, pointing to his bleeding wounds,
The threat'ning spectre stalk'd away[30].

I brought a lovely daughter forth,
His father's child, in Aaron's bed; 50
He took her from me in his wrath;--
"Where is my child?"--"Thy child is dead."

'Twas false--we wander'd far and wide,
Through town and country, field and fen,
Till Aaron, fighting, fell and died,
And I became a wife again.

I then was young:--my husband sold
My fancied charms for wicked price;
He gave me oft, for sinful gold,
The slave, but not the friend, of vice-- 60
Behold me, Heaven! my pains behold,
And let them for my sins suffice!

The wretch, who lent me thus for gain,
Despised me when my youth was fled;
Then came disease, and brought me pain--
Come, death, and bear me to the dead!
For, though I grieve, my grief is vain,
And fruitless all the tears I shed.

True, I was not to virtue train'd;
Yet well I knew my deeds were ill; 70
By each offence my heart was pain'd--
I wept, but I offended still;
My better thoughts my life disdain'd,
But yet the viler led my will.

My husband died, and now no more
My smile was sought, or ask'd my hand--
A widow'd vagrant, vile and poor,
Beneath a vagrant's vile command.

Ceaseless I roved the country round,
To win my bread by fraudful arts, 80
And long a poor subsistence found,
By spreading nets for simple hearts.

Though poor, and abject, and despised,
Their fortunes to the crowd I told;
I gave the young the love they prized,
And promised wealth to bless the old;
Schemes for the doubtful I devised,
And charms for the forsaken sold.

At length for arts like these confined
In prison with a lawless crew, 90
I soon perceived a kindred mind,
And there my long-lost daughter knew:

His father's child, whom Aaron gave
To wander with a distant clan,
The miseries of the world to brave,
And be the slave of vice and man.

She knew my name--we met in pain;
Our parting pangs can I express?
She sail'd a convict o'er the main,
And left an heir to her distress. 100

This is that heir to shame and pain,
For whom I only could descry
A world of trouble and disdain--
Yet, could I bear to see her die,
Or stretch her feeble hand in vain,
And, weeping, beg of me supply?

No! though the fate thy mother knew
Was shameful! shameful though thy race
Have wander'd all, a lawless crew,
Outcasts, despised in every place: 110

Yet, as the dark and muddy tide,
When far from its polluted source,
Becomes more pure, and, purified,
Flows in a clear and happy course--

In thee, dear infant! so may end
Our shame, in thee our sorrows cease!
And thy pure course will then extend,
In floods of joy, o'er vales of peace.
Oh! by the God who loves to spare,
Deny me not the boon I crave; 120
Let this loved child your mercy share,
And let me find a peaceful grave;
Make her yet spotless soul your care,
And let my sins their portion have;
Her for a better fate prepare,
And punish whom 'twere sin to save!

MAGISTRATE.

Recall the word, renounce the thought,
Command thy heart and bend thy knee.
There is to all a pardon brought,
A ransom rich, assured and free; 130
'Tis full when found, 'tis found if sought,
Oh! seek it, till 'tis seal'd to thee.

VAGRANT.

But how my pardon shall I know?

MAGISTRATE.

By feeling dread that 'tis not sent;
By tears, for sin that freely flow;
By grief, that all thy tears are spent;
By thoughts on that great debt we owe,
With all the mercy God has lent;
By suffering what thou canst not show,
Yet showing how thine heart is rent: 140
Till thou canst feel thy bosom glow,
And say, "MY SAVIOUR, I REPENT!"

FOOTNOTES:

[30] The state of mind here described will account for a vision of
this nature, without having recourse to any supernatural appearance.

WOMAN!

MR. LEDYARD, AS QUOTED BY M. PARKE IN HIS TRAVELS INTO AFRIC:

"To a Woman I never addressed myself in the language of decency and
friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I
was hungry or thirsty, wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like
Men, to perform a generous action: in so free and kind a manner
did they contribute to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the
sweetest draught; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a
double relish."

Place the white man on Afric's coast,
Whose swarthy sons in blood delight,
Who of their scorn to Europe boast,
And paint their very demons white:
There, while the sterner sex disdains
To soothe the woes they cannot feel,
Woman will strive to heal his pains,
And weep for those she cannot heal.
Hers is warm pity's sacred glow;
From all her stores she bears a part, 10
And bids the spring of hope re-flow,
That languish'd in the fainting heart.

"What, though so pale his haggard face,
So sunk and sad his looks,"--she cries--
"And far unlike our nobler race,
With crisped locks and rolling eyes:
Yet misery marks him of our kind;
We see him lost, alone, afraid;
And pangs of body, griefs in mind,
Pronounce him man, and ask our aid. 20

"Perhaps, in some far-distant shore,
There are who in these forms delight;
Whose milky features please them more,
Than ours of jet thus burnish'd bright.
Of such may be his weeping wife,
Such children for their sire may call;
And, if we spare his ebbing life,
Our kindness may preserve them all."

Thus her compassion woman shows,
Beneath the line her acts are these; 30
Nor the wide waste of Lapland-snows
Can her warm flow of pity freeze:--
"From some sad land the stranger comes,
Where joys, like ours, are never found;
Let's soothe him in our happy homes,
Where freedom sits, with plenty crown'd.

"'Tis good the fainting soul to cheer,
To see the famish'd stranger fed;
To milk for him the mother-deer,
To smooth for him the furry bed. 40
The powers above our Lapland bless
With good no other people know,
T' enlarge the joys that we possess,
By feeling those that we bestow!"

Thus, in extremes of cold and heat,
Where wandering man may trace his kind;
Wherever grief and want retreat,
In Woman they compassion find;
She makes the female breast her seat,
And dictates mercy to the mind. 50

Man may the sterner virtues know,
Determined justice, truth severe;
But female hearts with pity glow,
And Woman holds affliction dear.
For guiltless woes her sorrows flow,
And suffering vice compels her tear;
'Tis hers to soothe the ills below,
And bid life's fairer views appear.
To Woman's gentle kind we owe
What comforts and delights us here; 60
They its gay hopes on youth bestow,
And care they soothe, and age they cheer.

THE BOROUGH.

Paulo majora canamus.--VIRGIL. [_Ecl._ IV. v. 1.]

TO

HIS GRACE

THE DUKE OF RUTLAND,

_MARQUIS OF GRANBY;_

RECORDER OF CAMBRIDGE AND SCARBOROUGH;
LORD-LIEUTENANT AND CUSTOS-ROTULORUM OF THE
COUNTY OF LEICESTER; K.G. & LL.D.

MY LORD,

The poem, for which I have ventured to solicit your Grace's attention, was composed in a situation so near to Belvoir Castle, that the author had all the advantage to be derived from prospects extensive and beautiful, and from works of grandeur and sublimity: and, though nothing of the influence arising from such situation should be discernible in these verses, either from want of adequate powers in the writer, or because his subjects do not assimilate with such views, yet would it be natural for him to indulge a wish, that he might inscribe his labours to the lord of a scene which perpetually excited his admiration, and he would plead the propriety of placing the titles of the House of Rutland at the entrance of a volume written in the Vale of Belvoir.

But, my Lord, a motive much more powerful than a sense of propriety, a grateful remembrance of benefits conferred by the noble family in which you preside, has been the great inducement for me to wish that I might be permitted to inscribe this work to your Grace. The honours of that time were to me unexpected, they were unmerited, and they were transitory; but since I am thus allowed to make public my gratitude, I am in some degree restored to the honour of that period; I have again the happiness to find myself favoured, and my exertions stimulated, by the condescension of the Duke of Rutland.

It was my fortune, in a poem which yet circulates, to write of the virtues, talents, and heroic death of Lord Robert Manners, and to bear witness to the affection of a brother whose grief was poignant, and to be soothed only by remembrance of his worth whom he so deeply deplored. In a patron thus favourably predisposed, my Lord, I might look for much lenity, and could not fear the severity of critical examination: from your Grace, who, happily, have no such impediment to justice, I must not look for the same kind of indulgence. I am assured, by those whose situation gave them opportunity for knowledge, and whose abilities and attention guarded them from error, that I must not expect my failings will escape detection from want of discernment, neither am I to fear that any merit will be undistinguished through deficiency of taste. It is from this information, my Lord, and a consciousness of much which needs forgiveness, that I entreat your Grace to read my verses, with a wish, I had almost added, with a purpose, to be pleased, and to make every possible allowance for subjects not always pleasing, for manners sometimes gross, and for language too frequently incorrect.

With the fullest confidence in your Grace's ability and favour, in the accuracy of your judgment, and the lenity of your decision; with grateful remembrance of benefits received, and due consciousness of the little I could merit; with prayers that your Grace may long enjoy the dignities of the House of Rutland, and continue to dictate improvement for the surrounding country--I terminate an address, in which a fear of offending your Grace has made me so cautious in my expressions, that I may justly fear to offend many of my readers, who will think that something more of animation should have been excited by the objects I view, the benevolence I honour, and the gratitude I profess.

I have the honour to be,
My Lord,
Your Grace's
Most obliged
and obedient humble servant,

GEORGE CRABBE.