Written At Fourteen Years Of Age Poem by Christian Milne

ON AN ELDERLY LADY WHOM I THEN SERVED.
WHY am I destin'd here to stay,
Excluded from the world that's gay;
Confinement, and a brawling tongue,
My spirits curb'd, and I so young!
I thought them pious who were old;
I thought they were nor proud nor bold:
But sure her equals are but rare,
Or who would hoary age revere?
To find such trifles stir to rage
A blasted form, quite spent with age;
I'm shock'd her lifted crutch to see
Stretch'd out to strike a child like me.
'You're inexperienced, vain, and young,'
Flows oft in vollies from her tongue!
Yet this she knew before I came;
Why is it now a cause of blame?
When she engag'd me for her maid,
She valu'd not my work, she said;
If I could novels read, and plays,
And printed news on paper days.
Nay, I must knit the stocking too,
The book above, my hands below
The table, where I work'd and read,
'Till twelve o'clock I went to bed!
She cannot move without my aid,
Nor turn without her little maid;
Yet she must shew her pride and spleen,
She cries 'I'm great, and you are mean!'
She boasts she's sister to a Lord,
But can he health or Heaven afford?
Her peevish, proud, and fretful mind,
Makes him and all her friends unkind.
Though Death looks ghastly in her face,
None comes to claim her last embrace--
To close her eyes, or catch her breath,
Or do what's friendly at her death!
I tend her with unweary'd care;
For months I have not tasted air!
I sleepless watch her every night!
I oft extinguish too the light;
That she may sleep I sit in gloom,
Nor sees the Sun the darken'd room!
At times she calls me very kind,
And says, in Heav'n reward I'll find:
She'll mark me in her latter will,
To pay my care of her when ill.
I tend her not from selfish art;
But Conscience and a feeling heart
Still rule me with respect to her;
Nor influenc'd by love nor fear.
If Fate would send a blacken'd barge,
To rid me of my fretful charge,
And she embark'd in it, I'd pray
That e'en to bliss she'd find her way:
For her I'd mourn with outward show,
Equipp'd in black from top to toe.