# Sentimental reciter/The Ruined Cottage

THE SENTIMENTAL RECITER.
THE RUINED COTTAGE.
NONE will dwell in that cottage, for they say Oppression reft it from an honest man, And that a curse clings to it: hence the vine Trails its green weight of leaves upon the ground; Hence weeds are in that garden; hence the hedge, Once sweet with honey-suckle, is half dead; And hence the grey moss on the apple-tree. One once dwelt there, who had been in his youth A soldier; and when many years had pass’d He sought his native village, and sat down To end his days in peace. He had one child—— A little laughing thing, whose large dark eyes, He said, were like the mother’s she had left Buried in stranger lands; and time went on In comfort and content—and that fair girl Had grown far taller than the red rose tree Her father planted her first English birth-day; And he had train’d it up against an ash Till it became his pride;—it was so rich In blossom and in beauty, it was call’d The tree of Isabel. Twas an appeal To all the better feelings of the heart To mark their quiet happiness; their home, In truth, a home of love; and more than all, To see them on the Sabbath, when they came Among the first to church; and Isabel, With her bright colour and her clear glad eyes, Bowed down so meekly in the house of prayer; And in the hymn her sweet voice audible:—— Her father look’d so fond of her, and then From her look’d up so thankfully to Heaven! And their small cottage was so very neat; Their garden filled with fruits, and herbs, and flowers;
​And in the winter there was no fireside So cheerful as their own. But other days And other fortunes came—an evil power! They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped For better times, but ruin came at last; And the old soldier left his own dear home, And left it for a prison. ’Twas in June, One of June’s brightest days—the bee, the bird, The butterfly, were on their brightest wings; The fruits had their first tinge of summer light; The sunny sky, the very leaves seemed glad, And the old man look’d back upon his cottage And wept aloud:—they hurried him away, And the dear child that would not leave his side. They led him from the sight of the blue heaven And the green trees, into a low, dark cell, The windows shutting out the blessed sun With iron grating; and for the first time He threw him on his bed, and could not hear His Isabel’s “good night!” But the next morn She was the earliest at the prison gate, The last on whom it closed; and her sweet voice, And sweeter smile, made him forget to pine. She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers, But every morning could he see her cheek Grow paler and more pale, and her low tones Get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew Was on the hand he held. One day he saw The sun shine through the grating of his cell, Yet Isabel came not; at every sound His heart-beat took away his breath, yet still She came not near him. But one sad day He mark’d the dull street through the iron bars That shut him from the world;—at length he saw A coffin carried carelessly along, And he grew desperate—he forced the bars; And he stood on the street, free and alone! He had no aim, no wish for liberty— He only felt one want, to see the corpse That had no mourners. When they set it down, Or e’er ’twas lower'd into the new dug grave, A rush of passion came upon his soul, And he tore off the lid, and saw the face Of Isabel, and knew he had no child 1 He lay down by the coffin quietly—
L.E.L.