Should I reveal the sources of my grief.
If soft humanity e’er touch’d your breast.
Your hands would not withhold the kind relief.
And tears of pity would not be repressed.

Heav’n sends misfortunes; why should we repine?
’Tis Heav’n 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 died, and blighted was my corn.

My daughter, once the comfort of my age,
Lur’d by a villain from her native home,
Is cast abandoned 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, lingering 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 Heav’n will bless your store!