Page:Siege of Bellisle.pdf/7

 Now with bluſhes I tell, I no longer ſaid, No,

But Alexis and I unto church ſoon did go,

Ye laſſes, then hear me, O hear me, I pray,

Never mind on to-morrow, Catch hold on To-day.

Oung, friendleſs, and left the world’s cruel ſcorn,

no ſunſhine my ſad dreary proſpect to bleſs,

Ah, better perhaps had I never been born,

ſince charity ſleeps at the call of diſtreſs.

Yet ſtiil ſhall no evils my conſtancy ſhake,

or turn rue to deeds I may live to deplore;

For the Heaven which ſhelters, will never forſake,

the poor little Orphan that begs at your door.

And ſince death ſo unkindly hath robb’d me of friends,

whom the tie of affection ſhould bind to my heart;

All my hope of ſupport now on Heaven depends,

and the bleſſing which bounty ſo often impart.

But I who now wander in ſearch of my bread,

alas! oft in vain a kind ſhelter implore:

And the damp lowly earth is too often the bed,

of the poor little Orphan that begs at your door.

But, alas! if I meet not with charity’s aid,

by which the poor wanderer is often times bleſt;

If ftill no protection will offer its ſhade,

beneath which I may lull my ſad ſorrows to reſt,

Oh then from kind Heaven a releaſe I muſt crave,

and the damp lowly earth will ſoon be the grave,

And a reſpite from woes ſuch as theſe muſt implore;

of the poor little Orphan that begs at your door.

But compaſſion’s full heart I have often heard ſigh,

and it view’d, and yet could not relieve my diſtreſs;

But regiſter’d are ſuch kind feelings on high,

and rewards of delight the poſſeſſor will bleſs,

And all ye, who can tender compaſſion like this,

to thoſe, for whom life hath no comforts in ſtore;

May be the companions in the regions of bliſs,

of the poor little Orphan that begg’d at your door.