“Hence, ‘loathed business,’ which so long
Has plunged me in the toiling throng.
Forgive, dear Sir! and gentle Madam!
A drudging younger son of Adam,
Who’s forc’d from morn to night to labor
Or at the pipe, or at the tabor:
Nor has he hope ’twill e’er be o’er
Till landed on some kinder shore;
Some more propitious star, whose rays
Benign, may cheer his future days.
Ah, think for rest how he must pant
Whose life’s the summer of an ant!
[Pg 111]
With grief o’erwhelm’d, the wretched Abel[15]
Is dumb as architect of Babel.
—Three months of sullen silence—seem
With black ingratitude to teem;
As if my heart were made of stone
Which kindness could not work upon;
Or benefits e’er sit enshrin’d
Within the precincts of my mind.
But think not so, dear Sir! my crime
Proceeds alone from want of time.
No more a giddy youth, and idle,
Without a curb, without a bridle,
Who frisk’d about like colt unbroke,
And life regarded as a joke.—
No!—different duties now are mine;
Nor do I at my cares repine:
With naught to think of but myself
I little heeded worldly pelf;
But now, alert I act and move
For others whom I better love.
Should you refuse me absolution,
Condemning my new institution,
’Twould chill at once my heart and z............