I am just an ignorant man, sir, of the kind that digs and delves,
But I've learned that human beings cannot stay in by themselves;
They will reach out after something, be it good or be it bad,
And my heart on hers had settled, and—the girl was all I had!
"CHOKED AND STRANGLED BY THE FOUL BREATH OF THE CHIMNEYS OVER THERE."
Yes, it's solid, Mr. Preacher, every word
that you have said—
God loves children while they're living,
and adopts them when they're dead;
But I cannot help contriving, do the very best I can,
That it wasn't God's mercy took her, but the selfishness of man!
Why, she lay here, faint and gasping, moaning for a bit of air,
Choked and strangled by the foul breath of the chimneys over there;
It climbed through every window, and crept under every door,
And I tried to bar against it, and she only choked the more.
"OH, THE AIR IS PURE AND WHOLESOME WHERE SOME BABIES COO AND REST, AND THEY TRIM THEM OUT WITH RIBBONS, AND THEY FEED THEM WITH THE BEST."
She would lie there, with the old look that poor children somehow get;
She had learned to use her patience, and she did not cry or fret,
But would lift her little face up, so piteous and so fair,
And would whisper, "I am dying for a little breath of air!"
If she'd gone off through the sunlight, 'twouldn't have seemed so hard to me,
Or among the fresh cool breezes that come sweeping from the sea;
But it's nothing less than murder when my darling's every breath
Chokes and strangles with the poison from that chimney swamp of death!