Sentimental reciter/The Idiot

THE IDIOT.

Nature had formed poor hapless Ned
A thing of idiot mind;
Yet to the poor unreasoning boy
She was not quite unkind;

For Sarah lov’d her hapless child,
Whom helplessness made dear;
And life was happiness to him,
Who had no hope nor fear.

She knew his wants, she understood
Each half artic’late call;
And he was ev’ry thing to her,
And she to him was all.

And so for many a year they dwelt,
Nor knew a wish beside;
But age at length on Sarah came,
And she fell sick and died.

He tried in vain to waken her,
And call’d her o’er and o’er;
They told him she was dead—the sound
To him no import bore.

They clos’d her eyes and shrouded her,
And he stood wond’ring by;
And when they bore her to the grave,
He follow’d silently.

They laid her in the narrow house,
They sung the funeral stave;
But when the funeral train dispers’d,
He loiter’d near the grave.

The rabble boys who used to jeer,
Whene’er they saw poor Ned,
Now stood and watch’d him at the grave,
And not a word they said.

They came and went, and came again,
Till night at last came on;
And still he loiter’d by the grave,
Till all the rest were gone.

And when he found himself alone,
He quick removed the clay;
And rais’d the coffin up in haste,
And bore it swift away.

And when he reach’d his hut, he laid
The coffin on the floor;
And with the eagerness of joy,
He barr’d the cottage door!

And out he took his mother’s corpse
And placed it on a chair;
And then he heap’d the hearth, and blew
The kindling fire with care.

He placed his mother in her chair,
And in her wonted place;
And blew the kindling fire, that shone
Reflected on her face.

And pausing, now her hand would feel,
And now her face behold;
“Why, mother, do you look so pale?
And why are you so cold?"

It hath pleas’d God, from the poor wretch,
His only friend to call;
But God was kind to him, and soon
In death restor’d them all.