* * * * *
The following deeply affecting lines are from the same pen as those before quoted. Miss Geldard, the gifted writer, was for a time a much valued fellow-labourer both in England and Canada:—
A HOME AND A HEARTY WELCOME.
All day has the air been busy,
As the daylight hours went by,
With the laugh of the children's gladness,
Or their pitiful, hopeless cry.
But now all is hushed in silence,
They are lying in slumber deep:
While I ask, in this solemn midnight,
Where do the children sleep?
We know there are children sleeping
In many a happy home,
Where sickness rarely enters,
Where want may never come.
Their hands in prayer were folded
Ere they laid them down to rest,
And on rosy lip and soft white brow
Were a mother's kisses pressed.
They sleep and dream of angels;
Ah! well may their dreams be fair!—
Their home is now so like a heaven,
They seem already there.
But where are the children sleeping
In these wretched streets around,
Where sin, and want, and sorrow
Their choicest haunt have found?
Will you climb this broken staircase,
And glance through this shattered door;
Oh, can there be children sleeping
On that filthy and crowded floor?