How must you scorn the Farmer and the Farm!”
   The Widow smiled, and “Know you not,” said she,
“How much these farmers scorn or pity me;
Who see what you admire, and laugh at all they see? 
True, their opinion alters not my fate,
By falsely judging of an humble state: 
This garden you with such delight behold,
Tempts not a feeble dame who dreads the cold;
These plants which please so well your livelier sense,
To mine but little of their sweets dispense: 
Books soon are painful to my failing sight,
And oftener read from duty than delight;
(Yet let me own, that I can sometimes find
Both joy and duty in the act combined;)
But view me rightly, you will see no more
Than a poor female, willing to be poor;
Happy indeed, but not in books nor flowers,
Not in fair dreams, indulged in earlier hours,
Of never-tasted joys;—­such visions shun,
My youthful friend, nor scorn the Farmer’s Son.” 
   “Nay,” said the Damsel, nothing pleased to see
A friend’s advice could like a Father’s be,
“Bless’d in your cottage, you must surely smile
At those who live in our detested style: 
To my Lucinda’s sympathising heart
Could I my prospects and my griefs impart;,
She would console me; but I dare not show,
Ills that would wound her tender soul to know: 
And I confess, it shocks my pride to tell
The secrets of the prison where I dwell;
For that dear maiden would be shock’d to feel
The secrets I should shudder to reveal;
When told her friend was by a parent ask’d,
’Fed you the swine?’—­Good heaven! how I am task’d! —
What! can you smile?  Ah! smile not at the grief
That woos your pity and demands relief.” 
   “Trifles, my love:  you take a false alarm;
Think, I beseech you, better of the Farm: 
Duties in every state demand your care,
And light are those that will require it there. 
Fix on the Youth a favouring eye, and these,
To him pertaining, or as his, will please.” 
   “What words,” the Lass replied, “offend my ear! 
Try you my patience?  Can you be sincere? 
And am I told a willing hand to give
To a rude farmer, and with rustics live? 
Far other fate was yours;—­some gentle youth
Admir’d your beauty, and avow’d his truth;
The power of love prevail’d, and freely both
Gave the fond heart, and pledged the binding oath;
And then the rival’s plot, the parent’s power,
And jealous fears, drew on the happy hour: 
Ah! let not memory lose the blissful view,
But fairly show what love has done for you.” 
   “Agreed, my daughter; what my heart has known
Of Love’s strange power, shall be with frankness shown: 
But let me warn you, that experience finds
Few of the scenes that lively hope designs.” 
   “Mysterious all,” said Nancy; “you, I know,
Have suffered much; now deign the grief to show, —
I am your friend, and so prepare my heart
In all your sorrows to receive a part.”