e can die.

[First draft, _March_ 18, 1816.
First printed as published, April 4, 1816.]

A SKETCH.[ru][434]

"Honest--honest Iago!
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."
Shakespeare.

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;[rv]
Next--for some gracious service unexpressed,
And from its wages only to be guessed--
Raised from the toilet to the table,--where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed,
She dines from off the plate she lately washed.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie,
The genial confidante, and general spy-- 10
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess--
An only infant's earliest governess![rw]
She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know--but that high Soul secured the heart,[rx]
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear. 20
Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind,[ry]
Which Flattery fooled not, Baseness could not blind,
Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil,
Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,[rz]
Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain,
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,[sa]
Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity--till now. 30
Serenely purest of her sex that live,[sb]
But wanting one sweet weakness--to forgive;
Too shocked at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme, now laid aside too long,
The baleful burthen of this honest song,[sc]
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before. 40
If mothers--none know why-