Page:Poems (Crabbe).djvu/267

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235

"'Tis good the fainting soul to cheer,
To see the famish'd stranger fed;
To milk for him the Mother-Deer,
To smooth for him the furry bed.
  The Powers above, our Lapland bless.
   With good no other people know;
  T' enlarge the joys that we possess,
   By feeling those that we bestow!"

Thus in extremes of cold and heat,
Where wandering Man may trace his kind;
Wherever Grief and Want retreat,
In Woman they compassion find;
She makes the female breast her seat,
And dictates mercy to the mind.
Man may the sterner virtues know,
Determin'd justice, truth severe;
But female hearts with pity glow,
And Woman holds affliction dear;
For guiltless woes her sorrows flow,
And suffering vice compels her tear;
'Tis her's to soothe the ills below,
And bid life's fairer views appear;
To Woman's gentle kind we owe,
What comforts and delights us here;
They its gay hopes on youth bestow,
And care they soothe and age they cheer.

FINIS.