Thomas Moss (1740–1808)

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!

    Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span:

    Oh! give relief—and Heaven will bless your store.

These tatter’d cloaths my poverty bespeak,

    These hoary locks proclaim my lengthen’d years:

And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek,

    Has been the channel to a stream of tears.

Yon house, erected on the rising ground,

    With tempting aspect drew me from my road;

For plenty there a residence has found,

    And grandeur a magnificent abode.

(Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!)

    Here craving for a morsel of their bread,

A pamper’d menial forc’d me from the door,

    To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

Oh! take me to your hospitable dome,

    Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold!

Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,

    For I am poor and miserably old.

Should I reveal the source of every grief,

    If soft humanity e’er touch’d your breast,

Your hands would not with-hold the kind relief,

    And tears of pity could not be represt.

Heaven sends misfortunes—why should we repine?

    ’Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see:

And your condition may be soon like mine,

    The child of sorrow—and of misery.

A little farm was my paternal lot;

    Then, like the lark, I sprightly hail’d the morn;

But ah! oppression forc’d me from my cot,

    My cattle dy’d, and blighted was my corn.

My daughter—once the comfort of my age!

    Lur’d by a villain from her native home,

Is cast abandon’d on the world’s wide stage,

    And doom’d in scanty poverty to roam.

My tender wife—sweet soother of my care!

    Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,

Fell—ling’ring fell a victim to despair,

    And left the world to wretchedness and me.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!

    Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,

    Oh! give relief—and Heaven will bless your store.