Page:Northumberland life-boat.pdf/6

 Toiling, to sow his native fields.

And reap the harvest virtue yields.

Then happier lot wou'd both betide,

A bridegroom he, and I a bride :

But these fond hopes return no more.

For dead he lies on yonder shore.

O ! in that battle’s dismal day,

When thou, dear youth, didst gasping lay,

Why was not then thy Anna there ;

To bind thy wounds with softest care;

To search with speed the nearest spring,

To thy parch’d lips the water bring ;

To wash with tears thy bleeding face,

And soothe thee with a last embrace ?

But thou, amid a savage train,

Wert mingled among heaps of slain,

Without one friend to hear thy sighs,

Or Anna’s hand to close thine eyes.

Thou, cruel war, what hast thou done !

Thro’ thee the mother mourns her son ;