The once fond lovers met; not grief nor age,
Sickness nor pain, their hearts could disengage: 
Each had immediate confidence; a friend
Both now beheld, on whom they might depend: 
“Now is there one to whom I can express
My nature’s weakness, and my soul’s distress.” 
Allen look’d up, and with impatient heart —
“Let me not lose thee—­never let us part: 
So heaven this comfort to my sufferings give,
It is not all distress to think and live.” 
Thus Allen spoke—­for time had not removed
The charms attach’d to one so fondly loved;
Who with more health, the mistress of their cot,
Labours to soothe the evils of his lot. 
To her, to her alone, his various fate,
At various times, ’tis comfort to relate;
And yet his sorrow—­she too loves to hear
What wrings her bosom, and compels the tear. 
   First he related how he left the shore,
Alarm’d with fears that they should meet no more. 
Then, ere the ship had reach’d her purposed course,
They met and yielded to the Spanish force;
Then ‘cross th’ Atlantic seas they bore their prey,
Who grieving landed from their sultry bay: 
And marching many a burning league, he found
Himself a slave upon a miner’s ground: 
There a good priest his native language spoke,
And gave some ease to his tormenting yoke;
Kindly advanced him in his master’s grace,
And he was station’d in an easier place;
There, hopeless ever to escape the land,
He to a Spanish maiden gave his hand;
In cottage shelter’d from the blaze of day,
He saw his happy infants round him play;
Where summer shadows, made by lofty trees,
Waved o’er his seat, and soothed his reveries;
E’en then he thought of England, nor could sigh,
But his fond Isabel demanded, “Why?”
Grieved by the story, she the sigh repaid,
And wept in pity for the English maid: 
Thus twenty years were pass d, and pass’d his views
Of further bliss, for he had wealth to lose: 
His friend now dead, some foe had dared to paint
“His faith as tainted:  he his spouse would taint;
Make all his children infidels, and found
An English heresy on Christian ground.” 
“Whilst I was poor,” said Allen, “none would care
What my poor notions of religion were;
None ask’d me whom I worshipp’d, how I pray’d,
If due obedience to the laws were paid: 
My good adviser taught me to be still,
Nor to make converts had I power or will. 
I preach’d no foreign doctrine to my wife,
And never mention’d Luther in my life;
I, all they said, say what they would, allow’d,
And when the fathers bade me bow, I bow’d;
Their forms I follow’d, whether well or sick,
And was a most obedient Catholic. 
But I had money, and these pastors found
My notions vague, heretical, unsound: 
A wicked book they seized; the very Turk
Could not have read a more pernicious work;
To me pernicious, who if it were good