Placed near the town, and where, from window high,
The fair, confined, may our free crowds espy,
With many a stranger gazing up and down,
And all the envied tumult of the town;
May, in the smiling summer-eve, when they
Are sent to sleep the pleasant hours away,
Behold the poor (whom they conceive the bless’d)
Employ’d for hours, and grieved they cannot rest. 
   Here the fond girl, whose days are sad and few
Since dear mamma pronounced the last adieu,
Looks to the road, and fondly thinks she hears
The carriage-wheels, and struggles with her tears: 
All yet is new, the misses great and small,
Madam herself, and teachers, odious all;
From laughter, pity, nay command, she turns,
But melts in softness, or with anger burns;
Nauseates her food, and wonders who can sleep
On such mean beds, where she can only weep: 
She scorns condolence—­but to all she hates
Slowly at length her mind accommodates;
Then looks on bondage with the same concern
As others felt, and finds that she must learn
As others learn’d—­the common lot to share,
To search for comfort and submit to care. 
   There are, ’tis said, who on these seats attend,
And to these ductile minds destruction vend;
Wretches—­(to virtue, peace, and nature, foes) —
To these soft minds, their wicked trash expose;
Seize on the soul, ere passions take the sway,
And lead the heart, ere yet it feels, astray: 
Smugglers obscene!—­and can there be who take
Infernal pains the sleeping vice to wake? 
Can there be those by whom the thought defiled
Enters the spotless bosom of a child? 
By whom the ill is to the heart conveyed,
Who lend the foe, not yet in arms, their aid;
And sap the city-walls before the siege be laid? 
   Oh! rather skulking in the by-ways steal,
And rob the poorest traveller of his meal;
Burst through the humblest trader’s bolted door;
Bear from the widow’s hut her winter-store;
With stolen steed, on highways take your stand,
Your lips with curses arm’d, with death your hand; —
Take all but life—­the virtuous more would say,
Take life itself, dear as it is, away,
Rather than guilty thus the guileless soul betray. 
   Years pass away—­let us suppose them past,
Th’ accomplish’d nymph for freedom looks at last;
All hardships over, which a school contains,
The spirit’s bondage and the body’s pains;
Where teachers make the heartless, trembling set
Of pupils suffer for their own regret;
Where winter’s cold, attack’d by one poor fire,
Chills the fair child, commanded to retire;
She felt it keenly in the morning-air,
Keenly she felt it at the evening prayer. 
More pleasant summer; but then walks were made,
Not a sweet ramble, but a slow parade;
They moved by pairs beside the hawthorn-hedge,
Only to set their feelings on an edge;
And now at eve, when all their spirits rise,