LINES
WRITTEN IN A COTTAGE BY THE SEA-SIDE
(In which the Author had taken Shelter during a violent Storm),
UPON SEEING AN IDIOTIC YOUTH SEATED IN THE CHIMNEY-CORNER, CARESSING A BROOM.
’Twas on a night of wildest storms,
When loudly roar’d the raving main,—
When dark clouds shew’d their shapeless forms,
And hail beat hard the cottage pane,—
Tom Fool sat by the chimney-side,
With open mouth and staring eyes;
A batter’d broom was all his pride,—
It was his wife, his child, his prize!
Alike to him if tempests howl,
Or summer beam its sweetest day;
For still is pleas’d the silly soul,
And still he laughs the hours away.
Alas! I could not stop the sigh,
To see him thus so wildly stare,—
To mark, in ruins, Reason lie,
Callous alike to joy and care.
God bless thee, thoughtless soul! I cried;
Yet are thy wants but very few:
The world’s hard scenes thou ne’er hast tried;
Its cares and crimes to thee are new.
The hoary hag[2], who cross’d thee so,
Did not unkindly vex thy brain;
Indeed she could not be thy foe,
To snatch thee thus from grief and pain.
Deceit shall never wring thy heart,
And baffled hope awake no sighs;
And true love, harshly forc’d to part,
Shall never swell with tears thine eyes.
Then long enjoy thy batter’d broom,
Poor merry fool! and laugh away
’Till Fate shall bid thy reason bloom
In blissful scenes of brighter day.
[2] It is generally believed by the peasants of Devonshire that idiotcy is produced by the influence of a witch.