THE FEMALE EXILE.
39
The gilt, fairy ship, with its ribbon-sail spreading,
They launch on the salt pool the tide left behind;
Ah! victims—for whom their sad mother is dreading
The multiplied miseries that wait on mankind!
To fair fortune born, she beholds them with anguish,
Now wanderers with her on a once hostile soil,
Perhaps doom'd for life in chill penury to languish,
Or abject dependence, or soul-crushing toil.
But the sea-boat, her hopes and her terrors renewing,
O'er the dim grey horizon now faintly appears;
She flies to the quay, dreading tidings of ruin,
All breathless with haste, half expiring with fears.
