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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395939" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Poor Of The Borough. Letter XX: Ellen Orford</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'No charms she now can boast,'--'tis true,<br>But other charmers wither too:<br>'And she is old,'--the fact I know,<br>And old will other heroines grow;<br>But not like them has she been laid,<br>In ruin'd castle sore dismay'd;<br>Where naughty man and ghostly spright<br>Fill'd her pure mind with awe and dread,<br>Stalk'd round the room, put out the light,<br>And shook the curtains round her bed.<br>No cruel uncle kept her land,<br>No tyrant father forced her hand;<br>She had no vixen virgin-aunt,<br>Without whose aid she could not eat,<br>And yet who poison'd all her meat,<br>With gibe and sneer and taunt.<br>Yet of the heroine she'd a share, -<br>She saved a lover from despair,<br>And granted all his wish in spite<br>Of what she knew and felt was right:<br>But, heroine then no more,<br>She own'd the fault, and wept and pray'd<br>And humbly took the parish aid,<br>And dwelt among the poor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">OBSERVE yon tenement, apart and small,<br>Where the wet pebbles shine upon the wall;<br>Where the low benches lean beside the door,<br>And the red paling bounds the space before;<br>Where thrift and lavender, and lad's-love bloom, -<br>That humble dwelling is the widow's home;<br>There live a pair, for various fortunes known,<br>But the blind EUen will relate her own; -<br>Yet ere we hear the story she can tell,<br>On prouder sorrows let us briefly dwell.<br>I've often marvell'd, when, by night, by day,<br>I've mark'd the manners moving in my way,<br>And heard the language and beheld the lives<br>Of lass and lover, goddesses and wives,<br>That books, which promise much of life to give,<br>Should show so little how we truly live.<br>To me, it seems, their females and their men<br>Are but the creatures of the author's pen;<br>Nay, creatures borrow'd and again convey'd<br>From book to book--the shadows of a shade:<br>Life, if they'd search, would show them many a </div><div style="margin:10px 0">change;<br>The ruin sudden, and the misery strange!<br>With more of grievous, base, and dreadful things,<br>Than novelists relate or poet sings:<br>But they, who ought to look the world around,<br>Spy out a single spot in fairy-ground;<br>Where all, in turn, ideal forms behold,<br>And plots are laid and histories are told.<br>Time have I lent--I would their debt were less -<br>To flow'ry pages of sublime distress;<br>And to the heroine's soul-distracting fears<br>I early gave my sixpences and tears:<br>Oft have I travell'd in these tender tales,<br>To Darnley-Cottages and Maple-Vales,<br>And watch'd the fair-one from the first-born sigh,<br>When Henry pass'd and gazed in passing by;<br>Till I beheld them pacing in the park<br>Close by a coppice where 'twas cold and dark;<br>When such affection with such fate appear'd,<br>Want and a father to be shunn'd and fear'd,<br>Without employment, prospect, cot, or cash;<br>That I have judged th' heroic souls were rash.<br>Now shifts the scene,--the fair in tower </div><div style="margin:10px 0">confined,<br>In all things suffers but in change of mind;<br>Now woo'd by greatness to a bed of state,<br>Now deeply threaten'd with a dungeon's grate;<br>Till, suffering much, and being tried enough,<br>She shines, triumphant maid!--temptation-proof.<br>Then was I led to vengeful monks, who mix<br>With nymphs and swains, and play unpriestly tricks;<br>Then view'd banditti who in forest wide,<br>And cavern vast, indignant virgins hide;<br>Who, hemm'd with bands of sturdiest rogues about,<br>Find some strange succour, and come virgins out.<br>I've watch'd a wint'ry night on castle-walls,<br>I've stalk'd by moonlight through deserted halls,<br>And when the weary world was sunk to rest,<br>I've had such sights as may not be express'd.<br>Lo! that chateau, the western tower decay'd,<br>The peasants shun it,--they are all afraid;<br>For there was done a deed!--could walls reveal,<br>Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel!<br>Most horrid was it: --for, behold, the floor<br>Has stain of blood, and will be clean no more:<br>Hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon<br>And the long passage send a dismal tune, -<br>Music that ghosts delight in; and now heed<br>Yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed;<br>See! with majestic sweep she swims alone,<br>Through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan:<br>Though windows rattle, and though tap'stries shake,<br>And the feet falter every step they take,<br>'Mid moans and gibing sprights she silent goes,<br>To find a something, which will soon expose<br>The villanies and wiles of her determined foes:<br>And, having thus adventured, thus endured,<br>Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured.<br>Much have I fear'd, but am no more afraid,<br>When some chaste beauty, by some wretch betray'd,<br>Is drawn away with such distracted speed,<br>That she anticipates a dreadful deed:<br>Not so do I--Let solid walls impound<br>The captive fair, and dig a moat around;<br>Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel,<br>And keepers cruel, such as never feel;<br>With not a single note the purse supply,<br>And when she begs, let men and maids deny;<br>Be windows those from which she dares not fall,<br>And help so distant, 'tis in vain to call;<br>Still means of freedom will some power devise,<br>And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize.<br>To Northern Wales, in some sequester'd spot,<br>I've follow'd fair Louisa to her cot:<br>Where, then a wretched and deserted bride,<br>The injur'd fair-one wished from man to hide;<br>Till by her fond repenting Belville found,<br>By some kind chance--the straying of a hound,<br>He at her feet craved mercy, nor in vain,<br>For the relenting dove flew back again.<br>There's something rapturous in distress, or oh!<br>Could Clementina bear her lot of woe?<br>Or what she underwent could maiden undergoe?<br>The day was fix'd; for so the lover sigh'd,<br>So knelt and craved, he couldn't be denied;<br>When, tale most dreadful! every hope adieu, -<br>For the fond lover is the brother too:<br>All other griefs abate; this monstrous grief<br>Has no remission, comfort, or relief;<br>Four ample volumes, through each page disclose, -<br>Good Heaven protect us! only woes on woes;<br>Till some strange means afford a sudden view<br>Of some vile plot, and every woe adieu!<br>Now, should we grant these beauties all endure<br>Severest pangs, they've still the speediest cure;<br>Before one charm be withered from the face,<br>Except the bloom, which shall again have place,<br>In wedlock ends each wish, in triumph all disgrace;<br>And life to come, we fairly may suppose,<br>One light, bright contrast to these wild dark woes.<br>These let us leave, and at her sorrows look,<br>Too often seen, but seldom in a book;<br>Let her who felt, relate them;--on her chair<br>The heroine sits--in former years, the fair,<br>Now aged and poor; but Ellen Orford knows<br>That we should humbly take what Heaven bestows.<br>'My father died--again my mother wed,<br>And found the comforts of her life were fled;<br>Her angry husband, vex'd through half his years<br>By loss and troubles, filled her soul with fears:<br>Their children many, and 'twas my poor place<br>To nurse and wait on all the infant-race;<br>Labour and hunger were indeed my part,<br>And should have strengthen'd an erroneous heart.<br>'Sore was the grief to see him angry come,<br>And teased with business, make distress at home;<br>The father's fury and the children's cries<br>I soon could bear, but not my mother's sighs;<br>For she look'd back on comforts, and would say,<br>'I wrong'd thee, Ellen,' and then turn away:<br>Thus, for my age's good, my youth was tried,<br>And this my fortune till my mother died.<br>'So, amid sorrow much and little cheer -<br>A common case--I pass'd my twentieth year;<br>For these are frequent evils; thousands share<br>An equal grief--the like domestic care.<br>'Then in my days of bloom, of health, and youth,<br>One, much above me, vow'd his love and truth:<br>We often met, he dreading to be seen,<br>And much I question'd what such dread might mean;<br>Yet I believed him true; my simple heart<br>And undirected reason took his part.<br>'Can he who loves me, whom I love, deceive?<br>Can I such wrong of one so kind believe,<br>Who lives but in my smile, who trembles when I </div><div style="margin:10px 0">grieve?<br>'He dared not marry, but we met to prove<br>What sad encroachments and deceits has love:<br>Weak that I was, when he, rebuked, withdrew,<br>I let him see that I was wretched too;<br>When less my caution, I had still the pain<br>Of his or mine own weakness to complain.<br>'Happy the lovers class'd alike in life,<br>Or happier yet the rich endowing wife;<br>But most aggrieved the fond believing maid.<br>Of her rich lover tenderly afraid:<br>You judge th' event; for grievous was my fate,<br>Painful to feel, and shameful to relate:<br>Ah! sad it was my burthen to sustain,<br>When the least misery was the dread of pain;<br>When I have grieving told him my disgrace,<br>And plainly mark'd indifference in his face.<br>'Hard! with these fears and terrors to behold<br>The cause of all, the faithless lover, cold;<br>Impatient grown at every wish denied,<br>And barely civil, soothed and gratified;<br>Peevish when urged to think of vows so strong,<br>And angry when I spake of crime and wrong.<br>All this I felt, and still the sorrow grew,<br>Because I felt that I deserved it too,<br>And begg'd my infant stranger to forgive<br>The mother's shame, which in herself must live.<br>When known that shame, I, soon expell'd from home,<br>With a frail sister shared a hovel's gloom;<br>There barely fed--(what could I more request?)<br>My infant slumberer sleeping at my breast,<br>I from my window saw his blooming bride,<br>And my seducer smiling at her side;<br>Hope lived till then; I sank upon the floor,<br>And grief and thought and feeling were no more:<br>Although revived, I judged that life would close,<br>And went to rest, to wonder that I rose:<br>My dreams were dismal,--wheresoe'er I stray'd,<br>I seem'd ashamed, alarm'd, despised, betray'd;<br>Always in grief, in guilt, disgraced, forlorn,<br>Mourning that one so weak, so vile, was born;<br>The earth a desert, tumult in the sea,<br>The birds affrighten'd fled from tree to tree,<br>Obscured the setting sun, and every thing like me.<br>But Heav'n had mercy, and my need at length<br>Urged me to labour, and renew'd my strength.<br>I strove for patience as a sinner must,<br>Yet felt th' opinion of the world unjust:<br>There was my lover, in his joy esteem'd,<br>And I, in my distress, as guilty deemed;<br>Yet sure, not all the guilt and shame belong<br>To her who feels and suffers for the wrong:<br>The cheat at play may use the wealth he's won,<br>But is not honour'd for the mischief done;<br>The cheat in love may use each villain art,<br>And boast the deed that breaks the victim's heart.<br>'Four years were past; I might again have found<br>Some erring wish, but for another wound:<br>Lovely my daughter grew, her face was fair,<br>But no expression ever brighten'd there;<br>I doubted long, and vainly strove to make<br>Some certain meaning of the words she spake;<br>But meaning there was none, and I survey'd<br>With dread the beauties of my idiot-maid.<br>Still I submitted;--Oh! 'tis meet and fit<br>In all we feel to make the heart submit;<br>Gloomy and calm my days, but I had then,<br>It seem'd, attractions for the eyes of men:<br>The sober master of a decent trade<br>O'erlook'd my errors, and his offer made;<br>Reason assented: --true, my heart denied,<br>'But thou,' I said,'shalt be no more my guide.'<br>'When wed, our toil and trouble, pains and care,<br>Of means to live procured us humble share;<br>Five were our sons,--and we, though careful, found<br>Our hopes declining as the year came round:<br>For I perceived, yet would not soon perceive,<br>My husband stealing from my view to grieve:<br>Silent he grew, and when he spoke he sigh'd,<br>And surly look'd, and peevishly replied:<br>Pensive by nature, he had gone of late<br>To those who preach'd of destiny and fate,<br>Of things foredoom'd, and of election-grace,<br>And how in vain we strive to run our race;<br>That all by works and moral worth we gain<br>Is to perceive our care and labour vain;<br>That still the more we pay, our debts the more </div><div style="margin:10px 0">remain;<br>That he who feels not the mysterious call,<br>Lies bound in sin, still grov'ling from the fall.<br>My husband felt not: --our persuasion, prayer,<br>And our best reason, darken'd his despair;<br>His very nature changed; he now reviled<br>My former conduct,--he reproach'd my child:<br>He talked of bastard slips, and cursed his bed,<br>And from our kindness to concealment fled;<br>For ever to some evil change inclined,<br>To every gloomy thought he lent his mind,<br>Nor rest would give to us, nor rest himself could </div><div style="margin:10px 0">find;<br>His son suspended saw him, long bereft<br>Of life, nor prospect of revival left.<br>'With him died all our prospects, and once more<br>I shared th' allotments of the parish poor;<br>They took my children too, and this I know<br>Was just and lawful, but I felt the blow:<br>My idiot-maid and one unhealthy boy<br>Were left, a mother's misery and her joy.<br>'Three sons I follow'd to the grave, and one -<br>Oh! can I speak of that unhappy son?<br>Would all the memory of that time were fled,<br>And all those horrors, with my child, were dead!<br>Before the world seduced him, what a grace<br>And smile of gladness shone upon his face!<br>Then, he had knowledge; finely would he write;<br>Study to him was pleasure and delight;<br>Great was his courage, and but few could stand<br>Against the sleight and vigour of his hand;<br>The maidens loved him;--when he came to die,<br>No, not the coldest could suppress a sigh:<br>Here I must cease--how can I say, my child<br>Was by the bad of either sex beguiled?<br>Worst of the bad--they taught him that the laws<br>Made wrong and right; there was no other cause,<br>That all religion was the trade of priests,<br>And men, when dead, must perish like the beasts: -<br>And he, so lively and so gay, before -<br>Ah; spare a mother--I can tell no more.<br>'Int'rest was made that they should not destroy<br>The comely form of my deluded boy -<br>But pardon came not; damp the place and deep<br>Where he was kept, as they'd a tiger keep;<br>For he, unhappy! had before them all<br>Vow'd he'd escape, whatever might befall.<br>He'd means of dress, and dress'd beyond his means,<br>And so to see him in such dismal scenes,<br>I cannot speak it--cannot bear to tell<br>Of that sad hour--I heard the passing bell!<br>'Slowly they went; he smiled, and look'd so </div><div style="margin:10px 0">smart,<br>Yet sure he shudder'd when he saw the cart,<br>And gave a look--until my dying day,<br>That look will never from my mind away:<br>Oft as I sit, and ever in my dreams,<br>I see that look, and they have heard my screams.<br>'Now let me speak no more--yet all declared<br>That one so young, in pity, should be spared.<br>And one so manly;--on his graceful neck,<br>That chains of jewels may be proud to deck,<br>To a small mole a mother's lips have press'd -<br>And there the cord--my breath is sore oppress'd.<br>'I now can speak again: --my elder boy<br>Was that year drown'd,--a seaman in a hoy:<br>He left a numerous race; of these would some<br>In their young troubles to my cottage come,<br>And these I taught--an humble teacher I -<br>Upon their heavenly Parent to rely.<br>'Alas! I needed such reliance more:<br>My idiot-girl, so simply gay before,<br>Now wept in pain: some wretch had found a time,<br>Depraved and wicked, for that coward crime;<br>I had indeed my doubt, but I suppress'd<br>The thought that day and night disturb'd my rest;<br>She and that sick-pale brother--but why strive<br>To keep the terrors of that time alive?<br>'The hour arrived, the new, th' undreaded pain,<br>That came with violence, and yet came in vain.<br>I saw her die: her brother too is dead;<br>Nor own'd such crime--what is it that I dread?<br>'The parish aid withdrawn, I look'd around,<br>And in my school a bless'd subsistence found -<br>My winter-calm of life: to be of use<br>Would pleasant thoughts and heavenly hopes produce;<br>I loved them all; it soothed me to presage<br>The various trials of their riper age,<br>Then dwell on mine, and bless the Power who gave<br>Pains to correct us, and remorse to save.<br>'Yes! these were days of peace, but they are </div><div style="margin:10px 0">past, -<br>A trial came, I will believe, a last;<br>I lost my sight, and my employment gone,<br>Useless I live, but to the day live on;<br>Those eyes which long the light of heaven enjoy'd,<br>Were not by pain, by agony destroy'd:<br>My senses fail not all; I speak, I pray;<br>By night my rest, my food I take by day;<br>And, as my mind looks cheerful to my end,<br>I love mankind, and call my GOD my friend.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395939" data-title="The Poor Of The Borough. Letter XX: Ellen Orford de George Crabbe" data-description="'No charms she now can boast,'--'tis true,
But other charmers wither too:
'And she is old,'--the fact I know,
And old will other heroines grow;
But not like them has she been laid,
In ruin'd castle sore dismay'd;
Where naughty man and ghostly spri..."></div>
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