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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=478092" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Tale Of Society As It Is: From Facts, 1811</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>She was an aged woman; and the years<br>Which she had numbered on her toilsome way<br>Had bowed her natural powers to decay.<br>She was an aged woman; yet the ray<br>Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears, <br>Pressed into light by silent misery,<br>Hath soul's imperishable energy.<br>She was a cripple, and incapable<br>To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:<br>And therefore did her spirit dimly feel <br>That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,<br>Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>One only son's love had supported her.<br>She long had struggled with infirmity,<br>Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die, <br>When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,<br>Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.<br>But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child<br>For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield--<br>Bend to another's will--become a thing<br>More senseless than the sword of battlefield--<br>Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting;<br>And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>For seven years did this poor woman live<br>In unparticipated solitude. <br>Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude<br>Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.<br>If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.<br>The gleanings of precarious charity<br>Her scantiness of food did scarce supply. <br>The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt<br>Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:<br>Each arrow of the season's change she felt.<br>Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,<br>One only hope: it was—once more to see her son. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>It was an eve of June, when every star<br>Spoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.<br>She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eve<br>When first her soul began indeed to grieve:<br>Then he was here; now he is very far. <br>The sweetness of the balmy evening<br>A sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling,<br>Yet not devoid of rapture’s mingled tear:<br>A balm was in the poison of the sting.<br>This aged sufferer for many a year <br>Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed<br>A sigh--and turning round, clasped William to her breast!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>And, though his form was wasted by the woe<br>Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak,<br>Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek <br>Of slavery's violence and scorn did speak,<br>Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow.<br>The vital fire seemed re-illumed within<br>By this sweet unexpected welcoming.<br>Oh, consummation of the fondest hope <br>That ever soared on Fancy's wildest wing!<br>Oh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!<br>Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,<br>When THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.<br>Her son, compelled, the country's foes had fought, <br>Had bled in battle; and the stern control<br>Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul<br>Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl,<br>And unsubduable evils on him brought.<br>He was the shadow of the lusty child <br>Who, when the time of summer season smiled,<br>Did earn for her a meal of honesty,<br>And with affectionate discourse beguiled<br>The keen attacks of pain and poverty;<br>Till Power, as envying her this only joy,<br>From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>And now cold charity's unwelcome dole<br>Was insufficient to support the pair;<br>And they would perish rather than would bear<br>The law's stern slavery, and the insolent stare <br>With which law loves to rend the poor man's soul--<br>The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noise<br>Of heartless mirth which women, men, and boys<br>Wake in this scene of legal misery.<br>...</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Percy+Bysshe+Shelley">Percy Bysshe Shelley</a><div class=q>
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She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray
Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears, 
Pressed into light by silent misery,
..."></div>
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