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TOM AND JOHN.
1
While eager faces at his doorStill bid the cripple welcome home;
How bless'd is Tom, though blind and poor,
And forc'd, in age, to beg and roam!
23
Which biggen as his years encrease;
And home prepares for his grey hairs
The forest's gloom, without its peace!
2
While wranglers curse John's race and name,His father's grave, his sister's plea;
To soothe Tom's heart, kind words proclaim
The gentle looks he cannot see;
And still his dog will lead the blind,
To hear his tale, his daughter bend;
Nor shall her father live, to find
That faithful dog his only friend.
3
On John his liveried menials wait,As pompous plumes wave o'er the dead;
He dines in state, and oft on plate,
But still with aching heart and head:
Tom smiles and pines, yet sometimes dines
Where angels have their house of call,
And God his feast for fowl and beast
Spreads, in their common banquet-hall.
4
But John's full board no feast affords;He turns his much to more, in vain;
For household-fiends their cruel words
Still sharpen on his heart and brain:
24
White-blossom'd sorrow's root unbless'd;
While, envying blindness, age, and want,
He woos the worm, and longs for rest.
This poem is founded on some incidents in the life of a late breadtaxing palaced-pauper, who unable to give vast estates to each of his many sons, (and though succeeding pretty well, yet not so well as they wished, in quartering them on the public purse,) was constantly hectored by them, and told that he had better have sent them to plough; as if they could not have tried ploughing, without leave asked of him, and with a clear saving of all the bluster!
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