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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=508048" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>English Eclogues IV - The Sailor's Mother</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">WOMAN.<br>Sir for the love of God some small relief<br>To a poor woman!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Whither are you bound?<br>'Tis a late hour to travel o'er these downs,<br>No house for miles around us, and the way<br>Dreary and wild. The evening wind already<br>Makes one's teeth chatter, and the very Sun,<br>Setting so pale behind those thin white clouds,<br>Looks cold. 'Twill be a bitter night!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>Aye Sir<br>'Tis cutting keen! I smart at every breath,<br>Heaven knows how I shall reach my journey's end,<br>For the way is long before me, and my feet,<br>God help me! sore with travelling. I would gladly,<br>If it pleased God, lie down at once and die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Nay nay cheer up! a little food and rest<br>Will comfort you; and then your journey's end<br>Will make amends for all. You shake your head,<br>And weep. Is it some evil business then<br>That leads you from your home?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>Sir I am going<br>To see my son at Plymouth, sadly hurt<br>In the late action, and in the hospital<br>Dying, I fear me, now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Perhaps your fears<br>Make evil worse. Even if a limb be lost<br>There may be still enough for comfort left<br>An arm or leg shot off, there's yet the heart<br>To keep life warm, and he may live to talk<br>With pleasure of the glorious fight that maim'd him,<br>Proud of his loss. Old England's gratitude<br>Makes the maim'd sailor happy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>'Tis not that--<br>An arm or leg--I could have borne with that.<br>'Twas not a ball, it was some cursed thing<br>That bursts and burns that hurt him. Something Sir<br>They do not use on board our English ships<br>It is so wicked!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Rascals! a mean art<br>Of cruel cowardice, yet all in vain!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>Yes Sir! and they should show no mercy to them<br>For making use of such unchristian arms.<br>I had a letter from the hospital,<br>He got some friend to write it, and he tells me<br>That my poor boy has lost his precious eyes,<br>Burnt out. Alas! that I should ever live<br>To see this wretched day!--they tell me Sir<br>There is no cure for wounds like his. Indeed<br>'Tis a hard journey that I go upon<br>To such a dismal end!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>He yet may live.<br>But if the worst should chance, why you must bear<br>The will of heaven with patience. Were it not<br>Some comfort to reflect your son has fallen<br>Fighting his country's cause? and for yourself<br>You will not in unpitied poverty<br>Be left to mourn his loss. Your grateful country<br>Amid the triumph of her victory<br>Remember those who paid its price of blood,<br>And with a noble charity relieves<br>The widow and the orphan.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>God reward them!<br>God bless them, it will help me in my age<br>But Sir! it will not pay me for my child!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Was he your only child?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>My only one,<br>The stay and comfort of my widowhood,<br>A dear good boy!--when first he went to sea<br>I felt what it would come to,--something told me<br>I should be childless soon. But tell me Sir<br>If it be true that for a hurt like his<br>There is no cure? please God to spare his life<br>Tho' he be blind, yet I should be so thankful!<br>I can remember there was a blind man<br>Lived in our village, one from his youth up<br>Quite dark, and yet he was a merry man,<br>And he had none to tend on him so well<br>As I would tend my boy!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Of this be sure<br>His hurts are look'd to well, and the best help<br>The place affords, as rightly is his due,<br>Ever at hand. How happened it he left you?<br>Was a seafaring life his early choice?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>No Sir! poor fellow--he was wise enough<br>To be content at home, and 'twas a home<br>As comfortable Sir I even tho' I say it,<br>As any in the country. He was left<br>A little boy when his poor father died,<br>Just old enough to totter by himself<br>And call his mother's name. We two were all,<br>And as we were not left quite destitute<br>We bore up well. In the summer time I worked<br>Sometimes a-field. Then I was famed for knitting,<br>And in long winter nights my spinning wheel<br>Seldom stood still. We had kind neighbours too<br>And never felt distress. So he grew up<br>A comely lad and wonderous well disposed;<br>I taught him well; there was not in the parish<br>A child who said his prayers more regular,<br>Or answered readier thro' his catechism.<br>If I had foreseen this! but 'tis a blessing<br>We do'nt know what we're born to!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>But how came it<br>He chose to be a Sailor?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>You shall hear Sir;<br>As he grew up he used to watch the birds<br>In the corn, child's work you know, and easily done.<br>'Tis an idle sort of task, so he built up<br>A little hut of wicker-work and clay<br>Under the hedge, to shelter him in rain.<br>And then he took for very idleness<br>To making traps to catch the plunderers,<br>All sorts of cunning traps that boys can make--<br>Propping a stone to fall and shut them in,<br>Or crush them with its weight, or else a springe<br>Swung on a bough. He made them cleverly--<br>And I, poor foolish woman! I was pleased<br>To see the boy so handy. You may guess<br>What followed Sir from this unlucky skill.<br>He did what he should not when he was older:<br>I warn'd him oft enough; but he was caught<br>In wiring hares at last, and had his choice<br>The prison or the ship.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>The choice at least<br>Was kindly left him, and for broken laws<br>This was methinks no heavy punishment.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>So I was told Sir. And I tried to think so,<br>But 'twas a sad blow to me! I was used<br>To sleep at nights soundly and undisturb'd--<br>Now if the wind blew rough, it made me start<br>And think of my poor boy tossing about<br>Upon the roaring seas. And then I seem'd<br>To feel that it was hard to take him from me<br>For such a little fault. But he was wrong<br>Oh very wrong--a murrain on his traps!<br>See what they've brought him too!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>TRAVELLER.<br>Well! well! take comfort<br>He will be taken care of if he lives;<br>And should you lose your child, this is a country<br>Where the brave sailor never leaves a parent<br>To weep for him in want.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>WOMAN.<br>Sir I shall want<br>No succour long. In the common course of years<br>I soon must be at rest, and 'tis a comfort<br>When grief is hard upon me to reflect<br>It only leads me to that rest the sooner.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Southey">Robert Southey</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=508048" data-title="English Eclogues IV - The Sailor's Mother de Robert Southey" data-description="WOMAN.
Sir for the love of God some small relief
To a poor woman!


TRAVELLER.
Whither are you bound?
'Tis a late hour to travel o'er these downs,
No house for miles around us, and the way
Dreary and wild. The evening wind already
Makes one's teet..."></div>
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