Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

Had he the drunkard’s fate foreseen.

Go to my mother’s side,

And her crushed spirit cheer;

Thine own deep anguish hide,

Wipe from her cheek the tear;

Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow,

The gray that streaks her dark hair now,

The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb,

And trace the ruin back to him

Whose plighted faith in early youth,