Classic Poem

Sweet Babes! who like the little playful fawns
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side,
Who now your infant steps shall guide?
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
To ev'ry virtue would have form'd your youth,
And strew'd with flow'rs the thorny ways of truth?
O less beyond repair!
O wretched Father! left alone
To weep their dire misfortune and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind oppress'd with wo,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe,
Now she, alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?