Page:The Seaside and the Fireside.djvu/120

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98
By the Fireside.
What lovers! they give not a single caress!
To see them so careless and cold to-day,
  These are grand people, one would say.
What ails Baptiste? what grief doth him oppress?

  It is, that, half way up the hill,
  In yon cottage, by whose walls
  Stand the cart-house and the stalls,
  Dwelleth the blind orphan still,
  Daughter of a veteran old;
  And you must know, one year ago,
  That Margaret, the young and tender,
  Was the village pride and splendor,
  And Baptiste her lover bold.
  Love, the deceiver, them ensnared;
  For them the altar was prepared;
  But alas! the summer's blight,
  The dread disease that none can stay,
  The pestilence that walks by night,
  Took the young bride's sight away.