Page:The Emigrants.pdf/65



And mark the arrival of propitious May.­— How little dream'd I then the time would come, When the bright Sun of that delicious month Should, from disturb'd and artificial sleep, Awaken me to never‐ending toil, To terror and to tears!­—Attempting still, With feeble hands and cold desponding heart, To save my children from the o'erwhelming wrongs, That have for ten long years been heap'd on me!­— The fearful spectres of chicane and fraud Have, Proteus like, still chang'd their hideous forms (As the Law lent its plausible disguise), Pursuing my faint steps; and I have seen Friendship's sweet bonds (which were so early form'd,) And once I fondly thought of amaranth Inwove with silver seven times tried) give way,