LAMENT OF THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK.
Oh, ladies, will you listen to a little orphan's tale?
And pity her whose youthful voice must breathe so sad a wail;
And shrink not from the wretched form obtruding on your view.
As though the heart which in it dwells must be as loathsome too.
Full well I know that mine would be a strange repulsive mind,
Were the outward form an index true of the soul within it shrined;
But though I am so all devoid of the loveliness of youth,
Yet deem me not as destitute of its innocence and truth.
And ever in this hideous frame I strive to keep the light
Of faith in God, and love to man, still shining pure and bright;
Though hard the task, I often find, to keep the channel free
Whence all the kind affections flow to those who love not me.
I sometimes take a little child quite softly on my knee,
I hush it with my gentlest tones, and kiss it tenderly;
But my kindest words will not avail, my form cannot be screened,
And the babe recoils from my embrace, as though I were a fiend.
I sometimes, in my walks of toil, meet children at their play;
For a moment will my pulses fly, and I join the band so gay;
But they depart with nasty steps, while their lips and nostrils curl,
Nor e'en their childhood's sports will share with the little crooked girl.
But once it was not thus with me: I was a dear-loved child;
A mother's kiss oft pressed my brow, a father on me smiled;
No word was ever o'er me breathed, but in affection's tone,
For I to them was very near—their cherish'd, only one.
But sad the change which me befel, when they were laid to sleep,
Where the earth-worms o'er their mouldering forms their noisome revels keep;
For of the orphan's hapless fate there were few or none to care,
And burdens on my back were laid a child should never bear.
And now, in this offensive form, their cruelty is viewed—
For first upon me came disease—and deformity ensued:
Woe! woe to her, for whom not even this life's earliest stage
Could be redeemed from the bended form and decrepitude of age.
And yet of purest happiness I have some transient gleams;
'Tis when, upon my pallet rude, I lose myself in dreams:
The gloomy present fades away; the sad past seems forgot;
And in those visions of the night mine is a blissful lot.
The dead then come and visit me: I hear my father's voice;
I hear that gentle mother's tones, which makes my heart rejoice;
Her hand once more is softly placed upon my aching brow,
And she soothes my every pain away, as if an infant now.
But sad is it to wake again, to loneliness and fears;
To find myself the creature yet of misery and tears;
And then, once more, I try to sleep, and know the thrilling bliss
To see again my father's smile, and feel my mother's kiss.
And sometimes, then, a blessed boon has unto me been given—
An entrance to the spirit-world, a foretaste here of heaven;
I have heard the joyous anthems swell, from voice and golden lyre,
And seen the dearly loved of earth join in that gladsome choir.
And I have dropped this earthly frame, this frail disgusting clay,
And, in a beauteous spirit-form, have soared on wings away;
I have bathed my angel-pinions in the floods of glory bright,
Which circle, with their brilliant waves, the throne of living light.
I have joined the swelling chorus of the holy glittering bands
Who ever stand around that throne, with cymbals in their hands:
But the dream would soon be broken by the voices of the morn,
And the sunbeams send me forth again, the theme of jest and song.
I care not for their mockery now—the thought disturbs me not,
That, in this little span of life, contempt should be my lot;
But I would gladly welcome here some slight reprieve from pain,
And I'd murmur of my back no more, if it might not ache again.
Full well I know this ne'er can be, till I with peace am blest,
Where the heavy-laden sweetly sleep, and the weary are at rest;
For the body shall commingle with its kindred native dust,
And the soul return for evermore to the "Holy One and Just."
Letty.
