...wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, . . . She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain. (lines 128-32, 135-36) Like the poet, she is a "sad historian," her link with a protector broken. The...

...for bread To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian...pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,...

...the plashy spring; She, wretched matron, forced in age for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the...harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain. (131-37) Although Goldsmith designates her the "historian," she is a historian who does not write or...