WRITTEN ON THE DAY OF MY AUNT'S FUNERAL

Thou too art dead, ——! very kind Hast thou been to me in my childish days, Thou best good creature. I have not forgot How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet A prating schoolboy: I have not forgot The busy joy on that important day, When, child-like, the poor wanderer was content To leave the bosom of parental love, His childhood's play-place, and his early home, For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand, Hard uncouth tasks, and school-boy's scanty fare. How did thine eye peruse him round and round, And hardly know him in his yellow coats[3], Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue! Farewell, good aunt! Go thou, and occupy the same grave-bed Where the dead mother lies. Oh my dear mother, oh thou dear dead saint! Where's now that placid face, where oft hath sat A mother's smile, to think her son should thrive In this bad world, when she was dead and gone; And when a tear hath sat (take shame, O son!) When that same child has prov'd himself unkind. One parent yet is left—a wretched thing, A sad survivor of his buried wife, A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, A semblance most forlorn of what he was, A merry cheerful man. A merrier man, A man more apt to frame matter for mirth, Mad jokes, and anticks for a Christmas eve; Making life social, and the laggard time To move on nimbly, never yet did cheer The little circle of domestic friends.

February, 1797.

[Footnote 3: The dress of Christ's Hospital,]