And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for Warren! hurry! hurry! Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he'll come and dress his wound!" 130 Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground. Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came was, Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, He could not speak to tell us; but 'twas one of our brave fellows, 135 As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore. For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What _will_ his mother do?" Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue. 140 --"Why, grandma, how you're winking!"--Ah, my child, it sets me thinking Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-cheeked, and strong. And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather; 145 --"Please to tell us what his name was?"--Just your own, my little dear. There's his picture Copley[334] painted: we became so well acquainted, That,--in short, that's why I'm grandma, and you children are all here!" NOTES WILLIAM COWPER William Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England, in 1731. He was educated first at a private school and afterwards at Westminster in London. He studied law, but his progress in the profession was blocked because of an attack of insanity brought on in 1763 by nervousness over an oral examination for a clerkship in the House of Commons. After fifteen months he recovered and went to live at Huntingdon, where he met the Unwin family and began what was to be a lifelong friendship with Mrs. Unwin. Upon Mr. Unwin's death in 1767, Cowper moved with Mrs. Unwin to Olney, passing a secluded life there until 1786. In 1773 he suffered a second attack of melancholia, which lasted sixteen months. Soon after his recovery he coöperated with the Rev. John Newton in writing the well-known _Olney Hymns_ (1779). In 1782 he published his first volume of poems, and a second volume followed in 1785, containing _The Task_, _Tirocinium_, and the ballad of _John Gilpin_. A translation of Homer was completed in 1791. After 1791 his reason became hopelessly deranged, and he passed the time until his death in 1800 in utter misery.