With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound. A serving maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea, and died. Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves To distant shores; and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy, too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, And dream of transports she was not to know. She heard the doleful tidings of his death And never smil'd again! and now she roams The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, And there, unless when charity forbids, The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides, Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown She begs an idle pin of all she meets, And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food, I see a column of slow rising smoke From his accustom'd perch. Hard faring race! The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Great skill have they in palmistry, and more Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal. In human mould, should brutalize by choice By which the world might profit, and himself, Such squalid sloth to honourable toil! Yet even these, though, feigning sickness oft, They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores, |