A Tale of Society As It Is: From Facts, 1811

She was an aged woman; and the years

Which she had numbered on her toilsome way

Had bowed her natural powers to decay.

She was an aged woman; yet the ray

Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,

Pressed into light by silent misery,

Hath soul's imperishable energy.

She was a cripple, and incapable

To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:

And therefore did her spirit dimly feel

That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,

Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

One only son's love had supported her.

She long had struggled with infirmity,

Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,

When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,

Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.

But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child

For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield--

Bend to another's will--become a thing

More senseless than the sword of battlefield--

Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting;

And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.

For seven years did this poor woman live

In unparticipated solitude.

Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude

Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.

If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.

The gleanings of precarious charity

Her scantiness of food did scarce supply.

The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt

Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:

Each arrow of the season's change she felt.

Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,

One only hope: it was--once more to see her son.

It was an eve of June, when every star

Spoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.

She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eve

When first her soul began indeed to grieve:

Then he was here; now he is very far.

The sweetness of the balmy evening

A sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling,

Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear:

A balm was in the poison of the sting.

This aged sufferer for many a year

Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed

A sigh--and turning round, clasped William to her breast!

And, though his form was wasted by the woe

Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak,

Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek

Of slavery's violence and scorn did speak,

Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow.

The vital fire seemed re-illumed within

By this sweet unexpected welcoming.

Oh, consummation of the fondest hope

That ever soared on Fancy's wildest wing!

Oh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!

Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,

When THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!

Her son, compelled, the country's foes had fought,

Had bled in battle; and the stern control

Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul

Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl,

And unsubduable evils on him brought.

He was the shadow of the lusty child

Who, when the time of summer season smiled,

Did earn for her a meal of honesty,

And with affectionate discourse beguiled

The keen attacks of pain and poverty;

Till Power, as envying her this only joy,

From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.

And now cold charity's unwelcome dole

Was insufficient to support the pair;

And they would perish rather than would bear

The law's stern slavery, and the insolent stare

With which law loves to rend the poor man's soul--

The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noise

Of heartless mirth which women, men, and boys

Wake in this scene of legal misery.

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