255 ......245 .247 .248 .249 MISCELLANIES. THE WIDOW. "Mumbling to herself; Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall❜d and red; OTWAY. WHY sighs yon wretched being, whose patch'd weeds She weeps not at her growing poverty, Nor envies e'er the splendour of the world; But, mourning, sighs for long departed joys: An aged WIDOW, much she lov'd to gaze On him, a father's image. He, in youth, Regardless of all else, save one, would toil With his companion, chearfulness, the day; And oft the mountain's rugged brow he'd climb, To mark his distant dear-lov'd humble cot, And think with pleasure on his boyish years, Life's happy morn, when care gives way to mirth: Then would he anxious cull each wild-flow'r fair, Type of her beauty that had fir'd his breast; And proud was he at evening to behold A parent's fondness in a parent's smiles; A cot, the humble dwelling of content; And one, the sharer of his infant sports, His MARY; child of innocence, whose face Was fair, and seem'd the index of a mind, Pure as the unsullied snow-drop, gentle flow'r, The timid harbinger of welcome Spring, That drooping, chides dull Winter as it dies. |