His fancy paints their distant paths so gay,
That childish fortitude awhile gives way,
He feels his dreadful loss--yet short the pain,
Soon he resumes his cheerfulness again;
Pond'ring how best his moments to employ,
He sings his little songs of nameless joy,
Creeps on the warm green turf for many an hour,
And plucks by chance the white and yellow flow'r;
Smoothing their stems, while resting on his knees,
He binds a nosegay which he never sees;
Along the homeward path then feels his way,
Lifting his brow against the shining day,
And, with a playful rapture round his eyes,
Presents a sighing parent with the prize.

She blest _that_ day, which he remembers too,
When he could gaze on heav'n's ethereal blue,
See the green Spring, and Summer's countless dies,
And all the colours of the morning rise.--
'When was this work of bitterness begun?
How came the blindness of your only son?'
Thus pity prompts full many a tongue to say,
But never, till she slowly wipes away
Th' obtruding tear that trembles in her eye.
This dagger of a question meets reply:--
"My boy was healthy, and my rest was sound,
When last year's corn was green upon the ground
From yonder town infection found its way;
Around me putrid dead and dying lay,