The man that fled from so discreet a friend;
And pray’d, kind soul! that no event might make
The harden’d heart of Farmer Jones to ache. 
   But he still govern’d with resistless hand,
And where he could not guide he would command: 
With steady view, in course direct he steer’d,
And his fair daughters loved him, though they fear’d;
Each had her school, and as his wealth was known,
Each had in time a household of her own. 
   The Boy indeed was at the Grandam’s side
Humour’d and train’d, her trouble and her pride: 
Companions dear, with speech and spirits mild,
The childish widow and the vapourish child;
This nature prompts; minds uninform’d and weak
In such alliance ease and comfort seek: 
Push’d by the levity of youth aside,
The cares of man, his humour, or his pride,
They feel, in their defenceless state, allied;
The child is pleased to meet regard from age,
The old are pleased e’en children to engage;
And all their wisdom, scorn’d by proud mankind,
They love to pour into the ductile mind,
By its own weakness into error led,
And by fond age with prejudices fed. 
   The Father, thankful for the good he had,
Yet saw with pain a whining, timid Lad;
Whom he instructing led through cultured fields,
To show what Man performs, what Nature yields: 
But Stephen, listless, wander’d from the view,
From beasts he fled, for butterflies he flew,
And idly gazed about in search of something new. 
The lambs indeed he loved, and wish’d to play
With things so mild, so harmless, and so gay;
Best pleased the weakest of the flock to see,
With whom he felt a sickly sympathy. 
   Meantime the Dame was anxious, day and night,
To guide the notions of her babe aright,
And on the favourite mind to throw her glimmering light;
Her Bible-stories she impress’d betimes,
And fill’d his head with hymns and holy rhymes;
On powers unseen, the good and ill, she dwelt,
And the poor Boy mysterious terrors felt;
From frightful dreams he waking sobb’d in dread,
Till the good lady came to guard his bed. 
   The Father wish’d such errors to correct,
But let them pass in duty and respect: 
But more it grieved his worthy mind to see
That Stephen never would a farmer be: 
In vain he tried the shiftless Lad to guide,
And yet ’twas time that something should be tried: 
He at the village-school perchance might gain
All that such mind could gather and retain;
Yet the good Dame affirm’d her favourite child
Was apt and studious, though sedate and mild;
“That he on many a learned point could speak,
And that his body, not his mind, was weak.” 
   The Father doubted—­but to school was sent
The timid Stephen, weeping as he went: 
There the rude lads compell’d the child to fight,
And sent him bleeding to his home at night;
At this the Grandam more indulgent grew;