Oh, horrors! is it—is it true
What I have read?—if I but knew!
O, God, tell me where can I fly,
Not to be found when I shall die!
They say dead waifs are oft by night
Robbed of a decent burial's right;
That fiends the friendless bodies bear
To crowds of waiting students, where
Men tear them up for men to see.
O, God, sweet God, do pity me!
And I will humbly pray to men:
If this should come within the ken
Of one who lives a true-loved life,
Of one who sister has, or wife;
One who loves women for the best
That is in them, whose lips have pressed
Pure, genuine lips, whom women trust,
Whose heart is free from loathsome lust;
One whom I would have loved if he
Brother or husband were to me—
I ask you—nay, I do command
With that imperiousness you so
Like from a white and shapely hand—
I order you—but no, no, no;
I am past that—I humbly pray
That you will see that I unmarred
Have Christian burial. Guard, oh guard,
You men with manly hearts and souls,
My poor dead body from the ghouls!
I strove alway to keep it pure
As the soul in me; it has been
Type of the thoughts that lived within,
The white slave of what shall endure,
My spirit's loved though humble mate;
Let none its white limbs desecrate!
Weaker—yet weaker—'tis to die
This sharp pain bids me. Ah! good-bye,
World that I was too weak for—
March 10, 18—.
Back from a journey; mournful, it is true,
But mingled with a deep-down sweetness, too.
After the law with that poor girl was done,
I found permission with the proper one,
And, though such things by law could not occur,
In my heart-family I adopted her.
(Help much too late to benefit her, living—
It's that way with a good share of our giving!)
But, with a father's love, "Poor girl!" I said,
"You shall have all that I can give you, dead!"
I found, by lightning inquiries I made,
The graveyard where her own loved ones were laid;
I had her body tenderly removed,
And placed among the dear ones that she loved,
With all the honor that the poor, sweet child
Would have if Fortune still upon her smiled.
And when once more the flowers of summer blow,
My wife and daughters and myself will go
And make the sad but grateful duty ours
To see her last earth-dwelling roofed with flowers.