THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE. A Narration in Dramatic Blank Verse. But that entrance, Mother! FOSTER-MOTHER. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale! MARIA. No 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 Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. A pretty boy, but most unteachable And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes, And whistled, as he were a bird himself : And all the autumn 'twas his only play To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them 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: But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet, Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized And once as he was working near the cell He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's a doleful song about green fields, Who sang How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah, To hunt for food, and be a naked man, And wander up and down at liberty. Leoni doted on the youth, and now His love grew desperate; and defying death, MARIA. "Tis a sweet tale. And what became of him? FOSTER-MOTHER. He went on ship-board With those bold voyagers, who made discovery Soon after they arrived in that new world, And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed, |