THE FOUNDLING.
I have shaken off the painful, painful sleep
Unvisited by happy dreams;
Ere the first ray of sunlight gleams
Upon the hill—thereon in dark I creep.
With smiling Nature, waking up,
The young bird twitters under the white-thorn in flower;
Its mother brings it sweet, soft food this hour;
Mine eyes are like an over-brimming cup.
Ah! Wherefore have I not a mother?
Wherefore am I not like that young bird
Whose nest is balanced on the boughs wind-stirred?
Nothing on earth is mine—no brother—
Not even a cradle had I; on a stone
Before the village church I had been left;
A passer found me lying all alone,
Homeless and friendless, and of help bereft.
Far from my banished parents, never known,
Of all caresses ignorant I live,
And the children of the valley never own
Or call me sister, or aught in kindness give.
I never join in games of evening's hour
When women spin and children stories hear.
Under his roof of thatch, that trees embower,
The peasant never calls me when I'm near.
