But respectable poor have all to lose; For the world to know, means loss and shame; They’d rather die, if they had to choose; They cling as for life to place and name,—
Cling, and pretend, and conceal and hide; Never an hour but its terror bears; Terror which slinks like guilt to one side, And often a guiltier countenance wears.
“Respectably dressed” to the last; ay, last! Last dollar, last crust, last proud pulse-beat; Starved body, starved soul, hope dead and past: What wonder that any death looks sweet?
“An unknown man, respectably dressed,” That was all that the record said. When will the question let us rest,— Is it fault of ours that the man was dead? Helen Jackson.
“BAY BILLY.”
You may talk of horses of renown, What Goldsmith Maid has done, How Dexter cut the seconds down, And Fellowcraft’s great run: Would you hear about a horse that once A mighty battle won?
’Twas the last fight at Fredericksburg,— Perhaps the day you reck,— Our boys, the Twenty-second Maine, Kept Early’s men in check. Just where Wade Hampton boomed away, The fight went neck and neck.
All day we held the weaker wing, And held it with a will; Five several stubborn times we charged The battery on the hill, And five times beaten back, re-formed, And kept our columns still.
At last from out the centre fight Spurred up a general’s aide; “That battery must silenced be!” He cried as past he sped. Our colonel simply touched his cap, And then, with measured tread,—