To MISS R—, On her Attendance on her Mother at BUXTON. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T236 K019955.000 Barbauld, Mrs. (Anna Letitia), 1743-1825. Poems. London printed for Joseph Johnson 1773 pp. 104-106. vi,138p. ; 4⁰.

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To MISS R— , On her Attendance on her Mother at BUXTON . With lenient arts extend a mother's breath . POPE . WHEN blooming beauty in the noon of power , While offer'd joys demand each sprightly hour , With all that pomp of charms and winning mein Which sure to conquer needs but to be seen ; When she , whose name the softest love inspires , To the husht chamber of disease retires , To watch and weep beside a parent's bed , Catch the faint voice , and raise the languid head , What mixt delight each feeling heart must warm ! An angel's office suits an angel's form . Thus the tall column graceful rears its head To prop some mould'ring tower with moss o'erspread , Whose stately piles and arches yet display The venerable graces of decay : Thus round the wither'd trunk fresh shoots are seen To shade their parent with a chearful green . More health , dear maid ! thy soothing presence brings Than purest skies , or salutary springs : That voice , those looks such healing virtues bear , Thy sweet reviving smiles might cheer despair ; On the pale lips detain the parting breath , And bid hope blossom in the shades of death . Beauty , like thine , could never reach a charm So powerful to subdue , so sure to warm . On her lov'd child behold the mother gaze , In weakness pleas'd , and smiling thro' decays , And leaning on that breast her cares asswage ; How soft a pillow for declining age ! For this , when that fair frame must feel decay , ( Ye fates protract it to a distant day ) When thy approach no tumults shall impart , Nor that commanding glance strike thro' the heart , When meaner beauties shall have leave to shine , And crowds divide the homage lately thine , Not with the transient praise those charms can boast Shall thy fair fame and gentle deeds be lost : Some pious hand shall thy weak limbs sustain , And pay thee back these generous cares again ; Thy name shall flourish by the good approv'd , Thy memory honour'd , and thy dust belov'd .