The Marinere, whose eye is bright, He went, like one that hath been stunn'd And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn. 'Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly As mine and Albert's common Foster-mother. FOSTER-MOTHER. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, That joined your names with mine! Omy sweet lady, When you two little ones would stand at eve In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you 'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been. MARIA. O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me She gazes idly!--But that entrance, Mother! FOSTER-MOTHER. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale! No one. MARIA. FOSTER-MOTHER. My husband's father told it me, Poor old Leoni!-Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel? Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, A pretty boy, but most unteachable- And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes, And whistled, as he were a bird himself: And all the autumn 'twas his only play To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them He soon could write with the pen: and from that time, So he became a very learned youth. But Oh! poor wretch!—he read, and read, and read, 'Till his brain turned—and ere his twentieth year, |