A stranger, and alone, I past those scenes We past so late together; and my heart Felt something like desertion, when I look'd Around me, and the well-known voice of friend Was absent, and the cordial look was there No more to smile on me. I thought on Lloyd; All he had been to me. And now I go Again to mingle with a world impure, With men who make a mock of holy things Mistaken, and of man's best hope think scorn. The world does much to warp the heart of man, And I may sometimes join its ideot laugh. Of this I now complain not. Deal with me, Omniscient Father! as thou judgest best, And in thy season _tender_ thou my heart. I pray not for myself; I pray for him Whose soul is sore perplex'd: shine thou on him, Father of Lights! and in the difficult paths Make plain his way before him. His own thoughts May he not think, his own ends not pursue; So shall he best perform thy will on earth. Greatest and Best, thy will be ever ours! _August_, 1797. WRITTEN ON THE DAY OF MY AUNT'S FUNERAL Thou too art dead, ----! very kind Hast thou been to me in my childish days, Thou best good creature. I have not forgot How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet A prating schoolboy: I have not forgot The busy joy on that important day, When, child-like, the poor wanderer was content To leave the bosom of parental love, His childhood's play-place, and his early home, For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand, Hard uncouth tasks, and school-boy's scanty fare. How did thine eye peruse him round and round, And hardly know him in his yellow coats[3], Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue! Farewell, good aunt! Go thou, and occupy the same grave-bed Where the dead mother lies. Oh my dear mother, oh thou dear dead saint! Where's now that placid face, where oft hath sat A mother's smile, to think her son should thrive In this bad world, when she was dead and gone; And when a tear hath sat (take shame, O son!) When that same child has prov'd himself unkind. One parent yet is left--a wretched thing, A sad survivor of his buried wife, A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, A semblance most forlorn of what he was, A merry cheerful man. A merrier man, A man more apt to frame matter for mirth, Mad jokes, and anticks for a Christmas eve; Making life social, and the laggard time To move on nimbly, never yet did cheer The little circle of domestic friends. _February_, 1797. [Footnote 3: The dress of Christ's Hospital,] WRITTEN A YEAR AFTER THE EVENTS