Now free, but with a fixt disdain,
Behold the mother stand!
She frowns upon the brothers twain,
Nor takes the proffer'd hand.
"Do not, dear wife, my kindness shun,
Henceforth my comfort be;
And let us jointly bless my son,
Who witnesses for thee;"
So with quick speed Sansado cried,
With mingled joy and shame:
The noble Neela, thus replied,
With eyes of temperate flame.
"No, I renounce thee, and thy roof:
For Heaven who shields my young,
Bids me abjure thy love, not proof
'Gainst slander's vip'rous tongue."
"It is my duty to desert
A guard I must despise:
Farewell weak man, my child unhurt
On Providence relies."
"Now brave; a coward he might turn
Beneath thy base controul;
But from his mother he shall learn,
The empire of the soul."
She spoke, she kept, with truth most rare,
Her purpose nobly wild,
And made, by her maternal care,
A hero of her child.
* * * * *
THE GOAT.
BALLAD THE FOURTEENTH.
"Can mothers of our English isle,
The pride of all the earth,
From any tribe of tender brutes,
A mother's duly learn?"
So to a shepherd of the Alps,
A guest of noble birth,
A traveller of English race
Said on the swain's return;
When bringing to his simple cot
A Goat of signal grace,
He, to his foreign guest, display'd
The ornament she wore;
It was a splendid silver toy,
It's folds her neck embrace,
And it's rich centre, highly wrought,
This grateful motto bore:
_Dear animal! This trinket wear,
Mark of thy mental beauty!
For teaching to an English fair,
A mother's highest duty_!
"Good shepherd thou hast much to tell,
Some curious tender tale,
Thy kindness I with joy accept,
To rest beneath thy roof;
For now I see an evening storm
Is sweeping o'er the vale,
And here in this thy airy nest
I well can sleep aloof.
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