the FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT. FOSTER-MOTHER. I never saw the man whom you describe. MARIA. 'Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly As mine and Albert's common Foster-mother. FOSTER-MOTHER. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, When you two little ones would stand at eve In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you— 'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been. MARIA. O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me FOSTER-MOTHER. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale! MA IA. o one. FOSTER-MOTHER My husband's father told it me, Poor old Leoni!--Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel? Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, The boy loved him—and, when the Friar taught him, So he became a very learned youth. But Oh! poor wretch !—he read, and read, and read, 'Till his brain turned—and ere his twentieth year, He had unlawful thoughts of many things: Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized |