He would turn servant for her sake, would keep 180 The poorest school; the very streets would sweep, To show his love--“It was already shown, And her affliction should be all her own. His wants and weakness might have touch’d her heart, But from his meanness she resolved to part.” In a small alley was she lodged, beside Its humblest poor, and at the view she cried: “Welcome--yes! let me welcome, if I can, The fortune dealt me by this cruel man; Welcome this low thatch’d roof, this shatter’d door, 190 These walls of clay, this miserable floor; Welcome my envied neighbours; this, to you, Is all familiar--all to me is new. You have no hatred to the loathsome meal; } Your firmer nerves no trembling terrors feel, } Nor, what you must expose, desire you to conceal; } What your coarse feelings bear without offence, Disgusts my taste, and poisons every sense. Daily shall I your sad relations hear, Of wanton women, and of men severe; 200 There will dire curses, dreadful oaths abound, And vile expressions shock me and confound; Noise of dull wheels, and songs with horrid words, Will be the music that this lane affords; Mirth that disgusts, and quarrels that degrade The human mind, must my retreat invade. Hard is my fate! yet easier to sustain, Than to abide with guilt and fraud again, A grave impostor--who expects to meet, In such grey locks and gravity, deceit? 210 Where the sea rages, and the billows roar, Men know the danger, and they quit the shore; But, be there nothing in the way descried, When o’er the rocks smooth runs the wicked tide-- Sinking unwarn’d, they execrate the shock, And the dread peril of the sunken rock.” A frowning world had now the man to dread, Taught in no arts, to no profession bred; Pining in grief, beset with constant care, Wandering he went, to rest he knew not where. 220 Meantime the wife--but she abjured the name-- Endured her lot, and struggled with the shame: When, lo! an uncle on the mother’s side, In nature something, as in blood allied, Admired her firmness, his protection gave, And show’d a kindness she disdain’d to crave. Frugal and rich the man, and frugal grew The sister-mind, without a selfish view; And further still--the temp’rate pair agreed With what they saved the patient poor to feed. 230 His whole estate, when to the grave consign’d, Left the good kinsman to the kindred mind; Assured that law, with spell secure and tight, Had fix’d it as her own peculiar right. Now to her ancient residence removed, She lived as widow, well endow’d and loved; Decent her table was, and to her door Came daily welcomed the neglected poor. The absent sick were soothed by her relief,