By permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Copyright, 1901.


THE BETTER LAND

“I hear thee speak of the better land;

Thou call’st its children a happy band:

Mother! oh, where is that radiant shore?

Shall we not seek it, and weep no more?

Is it where the flower of the orange blows,

And the fireflies glance through the myrtle boughs?”

“Not there, not there, my child!”