THE FEMALE VAGRANT

       Table of Contents

      By Derwent’s side my Father’s cottage stood,

       (The Woman thus her artless story told)

       One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood

       Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.

       Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll’d:

       With thoughtless joy I stretch’d along the shore

       My father’s nets, or watched, when from the fold

       High o’er the cliffs I led my fleecy store,

       A dizzy depth below! his boat and twinkling oar.

      My father was a good and pious man,

       An honest man by honest parents bred,

       And I believe that, soon as I began

       To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,

       And in his hearing there my prayers I said:

       And afterwards, by my good father taught,

       I read, and loved the books in which I read;

       For books in every neighbouring house I sought,

       And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

      Can I forget what charms did once adorn

       My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,

       And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?

       The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;

       The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;

       My hen’s rich nest through long grass scarce espied;

       The cowslip-gathering at May’s dewy prime;

       The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,

       From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.

      The staff I yet remember which upbore

       The bending body of my active sire;

       His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore

       When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;

       When market-morning came, the neat attire

       With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck’d;

       My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,

       When stranger passed, so often I have check’d;

       The redbreast known for years, which at my casement peck’d.

      The suns of twenty summers danced along, —

       Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:

       Then rose a mansion proud our woods among,

       And cottage after cottage owned its sway,

       No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray

       Through pastures not his own, the master took;

       My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;

       He loved his old hereditary nook,

       And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.

      But, when he had refused the proffered gold,

       To cruel injuries he became a prey,

       Sore traversed in whate’er he bought and sold:

       His troubles grew upon him day by day,

       Till all his substance fell into decay.

       His little range of water was denied;

       All but the bed where his old body lay,

       All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,

       We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.

      Can I forget that miserable hour,

       When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,

       Peering above the trees, the steeple tower,

       That on his marriage-day sweet music made?

       Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,

       Close by my mother in their native bowers:

       Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed, —

       I could not pray: — through tears that fell in showers,

       Glimmer’d our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!

      There was a youth whom I had loved so long,

       That when I loved him not I cannot say.

       ‘Mid the green mountains many and many a song

       We two had sung, like little birds in May.

       When we began to tire of childish play

       We seemed still more and more to prize each other:

       We talked of marriage and our marriage day;

       And I in truth did love him like a brother,

       For never could I hope to meet with such another.

      His father said, that to a distant town

       He must repair,