(Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!)
Here craving for a morsel of their bread,
A pamper'd menial forc'd me from the door,
To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

Oh! take me to your hospitable dome,

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold!
Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor and miserably old.

Should I reveal the source of every grief,
If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast,
Your hands would not with-hold the kind relief,
And tears of pity could not be represt.

Heaven sends misfortunes-why should we repine?
'Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see:
And your condition may be soon like mine,'
The child of sorrow-and of misery.

A little farm was my paternal lot;

Then, like the lark, I sprightly hail'd the morn; But ah! oppression forc'd me from my cot, My cattle dy'd, and blighted was my corn.

My daughter-once the comfort of my age!
Lur'd by a villain from her native home,
Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,
And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam.

My tender wife-sweet soother of my care!
Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell-ling'ring fell a victim to despair,

And left the world to wretchedness and me.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,

Oh! give relief—and Heaven will bless your store.

ELEGY XII.

BY

DANIEL HAYES, ESQ.

АH! what avails this short sublunar sphere?
Why wish to act in the fantastic scene,
Subject at best to many a doubt and fear,
Too oft to cold neglect, and certain pain ?

Why does vain man his fondest wishes pour ? Why do his earliest prayers attack the sky, To stretch the space of each contracted hour? Say, is it then so terrible to die?

What joys hath life to counterpoise its cares? What sweets to recompence for all its woes? Lo! Av'rice gnaws, and fell Ambition tears The racking breast with hell's united throes.

Lo! squinting Jealousy's unsettled frown!
Lo! haggard Envy, with her bloodshot eye,
Sick'ning at noble deeds and fair renown,
And circulating still th' envenom'd lie.

And creeping Fraud, with well-dissembled leer, Exerts her base insinuating art,

Watching the generous stripling's prone career, To circumvent his unsuspecting heart.

Nor these alone embitter th' irksome way,
That leads to fleeting life's uncertain goal
Pandora's ministers, a dread array,

Convulse the sense, and rack the tortur'd soul.

Who but has seen the epileptic rage,

With wild distortion rend the alter'd frame; The Palsy, sad concomitant of age,

And thirsty Fever's all-devouring flame!

That fell disease which o'er th' enchanting face, The hideous veil of rugged horror throws; The Dropsy, ever swol❜n with foul increase, And pamper'd Gout's excruciating woes.

Did lavish Fortune from her endless store,
Vain mortal! gratify each greedy thought;
Did new-born pleasures court each circling hour,
Alas! how dearly is existence bought!

How dearer still, when nor kind Fortune's ray,
Nor vivid pleasure, nor serene delight,
Chear the sad morning of the wretch's day,
Or close his eye lids in the stormy night I

Such are his fates, who now in plaintive lore

Pours forth the anguish of his woe-struck mind, Swelling with tears the gentle river's store, Beneath a weeping willow's shade reclin'd:

Or near that pile, where, mouldering in the tomb,
The frail remains of once fam'd St. John lie,
Joyless he wanders through night's murky gloom,
The hollow winds re-echoing to his sigh:

Banish'd his much-lov'd home, the blissful plains, Where princely Shannon laves the flowery strand, No dear associate, no kind friend remains,

To chear his wanderings in a foreign land.

And thee, fair Limerick! whose beleaguer'd wall
So oft the bolts of raging Britain stood;
Before thy gates what thousands met their fall,
And with their bodies choak'd the spacious flood!

Parent of heroes! each illustrious child

Enlarg'd thy fame through every rolling age; Propitious Fortune on her labour smil❜d,

And with their triumphs swell'd the storied page.

Thine was Borhame, who fierce in days of yore,
'Gainst Denmark's power his hardy squadrons led ;
Loud rag'd the fight on Clontarff's sounding shore,
When by his arm the stern Turgesus bled.