BLIND BEGGAR OF ALBUQUERQUE
There are faces that pass in a moment,
But his face will live till I die.
He’d a beard and blue eyes like the Saviour,
At least like the face we all know,
And we met in the cool of the morning,
We met about two years ago.
And my heart bade me call out “Good morning,”
“Good morning,” he answered to me.
But I saw his blue eyes looking elsewhere,
Like one who was trying to see.
He had come from a hut without windows,
A mud hut with only a door,
Yet his face was the face of the Saviour,
And I fain would speak to him more.
So I stopped, for his smile had a sweetness
That entered the gates of my soul;
I was hungry to know where it came from,
That I might its wonders extol.
And we talked of the beautiful morning,
The scent of the grass and the flowers,
And he spoke like a man of refinement,
Like one to whom knowledge was power,
Of the glory of God and His wonders,
And we talked for more than an hour.
I forgot that the speaker was sightless,
Or a mud hut his dwelling here.
Could it be he was just a blind beggar?
Was a greater One standing near?
And he talked of the hills in their grandeur,
As sentinels watching mankind,
Of the plains and vales, of sunshine and flowers,
Which he only saw in his mind.
And he spoke of the poor and the lowly,
Of God’s mercy to such as he,
Of his gratitude to his Creator,
Gratitude, though he could not see.
And I stretched out my arms to that beggar,
From Syria, over the sea,
With the beard and the eyes of our Saviour—
At least they looked like that to me.
He had taught me a wonderful lesson,
The burden a Christian could bear,
Who from out the dark caverns of blindness
Saw only the things that were fair.
And I asked my dear Father forgiveness,
My fetters of sin to unbind,
That he’d make me to see like that beggar,
For I was the one who was blind.
SUNRISE FROM THE ALVARADO HOTEL,
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO.
“The Alvarado,” on the Santa Fe,
Here oft my eyes have met the break of day;
The red sun rising through the morning mist,
Over the mountains, and the mesa kissed,
Down to the valley, where the shadows deep
Dissolved, and woke the city from its sleep.
Facing the East, the first faint streak of dawn
Sought my closed eyes and ope’d them to the morn.
Then like the passing shadow of a cloud
Revealed the world beneath the lifted shroud,
The glories of the proud Sandia Range,
Whose rugged grandeur God alone can change.
Sweet was the air that in my casement swept,
And in the court below a fountain leap’t,
Which on the harp of life sweet music made,
And soothed me in my slumbers as it played.
The songs of gentle rain, of woodland stream,
Entranced me nightly in a murmuring dream.
The doves upon the roof made music too,
And sweet it was to hear them bill and coo.
Into my open window Nature smiled,
And all the world seemed pure and undefiled.
Naught can describe those joys of early morn,
When from the night another day was born.
When cares that come oppress and burden me,
I’ll pray to God to send me memory,
Where precious moments came at break of day,
“The Alvarado” on the Santa Fe.
Thither my soul shall fly where’er I be,
And bring that joy of morning back to me.