A little, worn-out doll some child had had,
Looking, like its surroundings, rough and sad,
And dressed in rags and pinched and famine-faced,
But bearing still some marks of girlish taste;
A gaunt, gray kitten, showing every sign
That it was on the last life of its nine,
Though trying hard to feel quite sleek and fat,
And not a very care-worn, desolate cat;
A man, so grieved my heart can see him now,
With frightful sorrow printed on his brow;
A rough, wood coffin stood there near the bed,
Looking uneasy even for the dead;
A little, pallid face I saw therein—
A niceish-looking child she must have been,
As sweet as ever need to feed a glance,
If she had only had one-half a chance.
But still, she woke a thought I could not smother—
"That child was murdered in some way or other."[4]
And my opinion didn't seem much amiss
When the man spoke up, something like to this:
[4] All this, above the shoulder, I could see,
Of an old preacher who had come with me—
A man who, 'mongst those garrets, earns, they say,
A house and lot in heaven every day.
[THAT SWAMP OF DEATH.]
Yes, it's straight and true, good Preacher, every word that you have said;
Do not think these tears unmanly—they're the first ones I have shed!
But they kind o' beat and pounded 'gainst my aching heart and brain,
And they would not be let go of, and they gave me extra pain.
I am just a laboring man, sir—work for food and rags and sleep,
And I hardly know the meaning of the life I slave to keep;
But I know when times are cheery, or my heart is made of lead;
I know sorrow when I see it, and—I know my girl is dead!
No, she isn't much to look at—just a plainish bit of clay,
Of the sort of perished children that die 'round here every day;
And how she could break a heart up you'd be slow to understand,
But she held mine, Mr. Preacher, in that little withered hand!
There are lots of prettier children, with a face and form more fine—
Let their parents love and pet them—but this little one was mine!
There was no one else to cling to when we two were torn apart,
And it's death—this amputation of the strong arms of the heart!