With a little bit invented and a little bit inferred.
But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand,
For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land.
“Yes,” he whispered, “I can see it—I can see it, sister Nell;
Oh, the children look so happy, and they’re all so strong and well;
I can see them there with Jesus—He is playing with them, too!
Let us run away and join them, if there’s room for me and you.”
She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spent
In the garret and the alley, where they starved to pay the rent;
Where a drunken father’s curses and a drunken mother’s blows