Analysis of Good Tidings; Or News From The Farm

Where's the Blind Child, so admirably fair,
With guileless dimples, and with flaxen hair
That waves in ev'ry breeze? he's often seen
Beside yon cottage wall, or on the green,
With others match'd in spirit and in size,
Health on their cheeks and rapture in their eyes;
That full expanse of voice, to childhood dear,
Soul of their sports, is duly cherish'd here:
And, hark! that laugh is his, that jovial cry;
He hears the ball and trundling hoop brush by,
And runs the giddy course with all his might,
A very child in every thing but sight;
With circumscrib'd but not abated pow'rs,-
Play! the great object of his infant hours;-
In many a game he takes a noisy part,
And shows the native gladness of his heart;
But soon he hears, on pleasure all intent,
The new suggestion and the quick assent;
The grove invites, delight thrills every breast-
To leap the ditch and seek the downy nest
Away they start, leave balls and hoops behind,
And one companion leave--the boy is blind!
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,
I trembled for his fate: but all my care
Avail'd not, for he breath'd the tainted air;
Sickness ensu'd-in terror and dismay
I nurs'd him in my arms both night and day,
When his soft skin from head to foot became
One swelling purple sore, unfit to name:
Hour after hour, when all was still beside,
When the pale night-light in its socket died,
Alone I sat; the thought still sooths my heart,
That surely I perform'd a mother's part,
Watching with such anxiety and pain
Till he might smile and look on me again;
But that was not to be-ask me no more:
GOD keep small-pox and blindness from your door!'
Now, ye who think, whose souls abroad take wing,
And trace out human troubles to their spring,
Say, should Heav'n grant us, in some hallow'd hour,
Means to divest this demon of his power,
To loose his horrid grasp from early worth,
To spread a saving conquest round the earth,
Till ev'ry land shall bow the grateful knee,
Would it not be a glorious day to see?-
That day is come! my soul, in strength arise,
Invoke no muse, no power below the skies;
To Heav'n the energies of verse belong,
Truth is the theme, and truth shall be the song;
Arm with conviction ev'ry joyful line,
Source of all mercies, for the praise is thine!
Sweet beam'd the star of peace upon those days
When Virtue watch'd my childhood's quiet ways,
Whence a warm spark of Nature's holy flame
Gave the farm-yard an honourable name,
But left one theme unsung: then, who had seen
In herds that feast upon the vernal green,
Or dreamt that in the blood of kine there ran
Blessings beyond the sustenance of man?
We tread the meadow, and we scent the thorn,
We hail the day-spring of a summer's morn
Nor mead at dawning day, nor thymy heath,
Transcends the fragrance of the heifer's breath:
May that dear fragrance, as it floats along
O'er ev'ry flow'r that lives in rustic song;
May all the sweets of meadows and of kine
Embalm, O Health! this offering at thy shrine.
Dear must that moment be when first the mind,
Ranging the paths of science unconfin'd,
Strikes a new light; when, obvious to the sense,
Springs the fresh spark of bright intelligence.
So felt the towering soul of MONTAGU,
Her sex's glory, and her country's too;
Who gave the spotted plague one deadly blow,
And bade its mitigated poison flow
With