For tenderness fram'd in life's earliest day

For tenderness fram'd in life's earliest day, A parent's soft sorrows to mine led the way: The lesson of pity was caught from her eye, And, ere words were my own, I spoke in a sigh.

The nightingale plunder'd, the mate-widow'd dove, The warbled complaint of the suffering grove, To youth as it ripen'd gave sentiment new, The object still changing, the sympathy true.

Soft embers of passion yet rest in the glow— A warmth of more pain may this breast never know! Or, if too indulgent the blessing I claim, Let the spark drop from reason that wakens the flame.