Page images
PDF
EPUB

They seemed like the sombre spirits,
From some lost, forsaken clime,
A caravan from the dusty realms
On the farther side of time.
The lean and drooping horses,
The covered vans piled high,
The sullen and cruel driver
With the lash, and curse, and
The dogs so hungry and savage,
And beside them on either hand,
The swarthy, swaggering masters,
The lords of the Gypsy band.
And the women!

cry;

O, the women!

So haggard, and bent, and black,
With the babe strapped across the bosom,
And the burden upon the back;

And the pitiful little children,
With faces as old as sin,-

Ah! when did their childhood leave them,

And the burden of life begin?

And after the rest came trooping
Singly, in groups and pairs,

The girls with the cymbals and tamborines,
The boys with the dancing bears;

And the village rabble crowded

On the heels of this human woe,
Flinging their vagrant pennies.
To pay for the pitiful show.

And they seemed to me all less human
Than the half-tamed beasts they led,
I was glad when the hateful pageant
From my aching vision fled.

1

A blot on God's sweet sunlight;

A blackened, noisome stain;
A reproach to the Infinite kindness,
And my heart grew sick with pain.

Then I thought of the Babe in the manger,
Of the child beside my knees,

"In His image and likeness He formed him,"-
Could the legend mean aught to these?
Was there somehow in God's wide mercy,
A special provision planned?

Was there somewhere in God's great Heaven,
A place for a Gypsy band?

Then I looked at my little daughter,

In her apron, clean and white,

With her soft brushed curls, and her forehead As pure as Heaven's own light. But the tender eyes were clouded, With an anxious, questioning air, "O Mamma, are these God's children? Does our Father in Heaven care?

"Can they never go to Heaven? It's only clean folks, you know,

Can enter the shining city

In garments as white as snow!
oh! so sorry !"

I'm so sorry,

The great tears trembled and fell,
And the child's heart broke with the pity,
Which the child's lips could not tell.

O shame to my righteous doubting!
O shame to my narrow creed!
For "who hath made us to differ,"
For whom did the Lord Christ bleed?

What is a child's compassion
To the Infinite heart above?,
What is a child's poor pity

To the great wide Heaven of love?

"Yes, Bessie, these are God's children,
He can make them clean and white,
He cares for them just like the sparrows,
And watches them day and night.
The beautiful gates are open,

Christ Himself will gather them in,
These poor, lost children of darkness,
From their misery, want, and sin."

Then the dear little face grew brighter,
The shadows flew from her brow,
"I'm so glad for the poor little Gypsies,
But I wish God would come right now!"

SARA M. CHATFIELD.

A CULPRIT.

From the Century.

THE

HE maiden aunt, in her straight-backed chair, With a flush on her pale and wrinkled cheek, And a horrified, mortified, mystified air,

Was just about to speak.

And the maiden niece-a nice little maid

Stood meekly twirling her thumbs about, With a half-triumphant, half-afraid,

And wholly bewitching pout.

Said the maiden aunt: "Will you please explain, What your heads were doing so close together? You could easily, I assure you, Jane,

Have knocked me down with a feather!

"When I think of your bringing up—my care, My scrupulous care-and it's come to this! you Appeared to be sitting calmly there,

And letting a young man kiss you!

"Now tell me at once just what he said,

This is quite a trial,

And what you replied
So do not stand there and hang your head,
Or attempt the least denial!

"If I catch you once more in such a fix,

Though you are eighteen, I can tell you, Jane,
I shall treat you just as if you were six,
And send you to school again!

"Are you going to tell me what he said,

And what you said? I'll not stand this trifling. So look at me, Jane! Lift up your head! Don't go as if you were stifling!"

Her voice was shaken, of course, with fear.

“He said—he said, ' Will you have me, Jane?' And I said I would. But, indeed, aunt, dear, We'll never do so again."

MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.

THE MISERIES OF WAR.

HE stoutest heart in this assembly would recoil were

THE

he, who owns it, to behold the destruction of a single individual by some deed of violence. Were the

man who, at this moment, stands before you, in the full play and energy of health, to be, in another moment, laid, by some deadly aim, a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed ; who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away; who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment; who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments; who would dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed, which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever-med

dling memory, into a scene of restlessness. Oh, tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it to behold the agonies of the dying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance; or, wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body; or, lifting up a faded eye he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness for that succor which no sympathy can yield him? It may be painful to dwell thus, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten thousand times; say how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field; give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us, with all the accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted

« PreviousContinue »