Is devoted in silence unseen to the outcast, the old, and the poor.
Five hundred such waifs are here housed, and they yearn to find refuge for more!
That's the pith of the matter, dear Madam! And as for the rest, I've returned
From a visit, and fancy your heart, like my own, would have lightened and burned!
Had you walked through the wards, as I walked, with a Sister as frank and unfeigned
As sweet Charity's servant should be. There was nothing o'er piously strained
In this unrigid Refuge for helplessness. Cheeriness, confidence, mirth
Seemed to reign in these child-crowded rooms—in these wards where the aged, whose birth
Dated well-nigh a century back, whether sewing, or smoking, or prone
On the pallet of sickness, all smiled, and no soul seemed forlorn or alone.