COWPER.
"I dearly love a sailor!" exclaimed the beautiful and fascinating
Mrs. D----, as she stood in the balcony of her house, leaning upon the
arm of her affectionate and indulgent husband, and gazing at a poor
shattered tar who supplicated charity by a look that could hardly fail
of interesting the generous sympathies of the heart--"I dearly love a
sailor; he is so truly the child of nature; and I never feel more
disposed to shed tears, than when I see the hardy veteran who has
sacrificed his youth, and even his limbs, in the service of his
country--
"Cast abandoned on the world's wide stage,
And doomed in scanty poverty to roam."
Look at yon poor remnant of the tempest, probably reduced to the hard
necessity of becoming a wanderer, without a home to shelter him, or one
kind commiserating smile to shed a ray of sunshine on the dreary winter
of his life. I can remember, when a child, I had an uncle who loved me
very tenderly, and my attachment to him was almost that of a daughter;
indeed he was the pride and admiration of our village; for every one
esteemed him for his kind and cheerful disposition. But untoward events
cast a gloom upon his mind; he hastened away to sea, and we never saw
him more."
By this time the weather-beaten, care-worn seaman had advanced toward
the house, and cast a wistful glance aloft; it was full of honest pride
that disdained to beg, yet his appearance was so marked with every
emblem of poverty and hunger, that, as the conflicting feelings worked
within his breast, his countenance betrayed involuntarily the struggles
of his heart.
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