Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!Will ye give it up to slaves?Will ye look for greener graves?Hope ye mercy still?What's the mercy despots feel?Hear it in that battle peal!Read it on yon bristling steel!Ask it—ye who will.Fear ye foes who kill for hire?Will ye to your homes retire?Look behind you! They're afire!And, before you, seeWho have done it! From the valeOn they come! and will ye quail?Leaden rain and iron hailLet their welcome be!In the God of battles trust!Die we may—and die we must;But, O where can dust to dustBe consigned so well,As where Heaven its dews shall shedOn the martyred patriot's bed,And the rocks shall raise their head,Of his deeds to tell!John Pierpont.
TravelerWhy dost thou wildly rush and roar,Mad River, O Mad River?Wilt thou not pause and cease to pourThy hurrying, headlong waters o'erThis rocky shelf forever?What secret trouble stirs thy breast?Why all this fret and flurry?Dost thou not know that what is bestIn this too restless world is restFrom overwork and worry?The RiverWhat wouldst thou in these mountains seek,O stranger from the city?Is it perhaps some foolish freakOf thine, to put the words I speakInto a plaintive ditty?TravelerYes; I would learn of thee thy song,With all its flowing numbers,And in a voice as fresh and strongAs thine is, sing it all day long,And hear it in my slumbers.The RiverA brooklet nameless and unknownWas I at first, resemblingA little child, that all aloneComes venturing down the stairs of stone,Irresolute and trembling.Later, by wayward fancies led,For the wide world I panted;Out of the forest dark and dreadAcross the open fields I fled,Like one pursued and haunted.I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,My voice exultant blendingWith thunder from the passing cloud,The wind, the forest bent and bowed,The rush of rain descending.I heard the distant ocean call,Imploring and entreating;Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wallI plunged, and the loud waterfallMade answer to the greeting.And now, beset with many ills,A toilsome life I follow;Compelled to carry from the hillsThese logs to the impatient millsBelow there in the hollow.Yet something ever cheers and charmsThe rudeness of my labors;Daily I water with these armsThe cattle of a hundred farms,And have the birds for neighbors.Men call me Mad, and well they may,When, full of rage and trouble,I burst my banks of sand and clay,And sweep their wooden bridge away,Like withered reeds or stubble.Now go and write thy little rhyme,As of thine own creating.Thou seest the day is past its prime;I can no longer waste my time;The mills are tired of waiting.Henry W. Longfellow.
When papa was a little boy you really couldn't findIn all the country round about a child so quick to mind.His mother never called but once, and he was always there;He never made the baby cry or pulled his sister's hair.He never slid down banisters or made the slightest noise,And never in his life was known to fight with other boys.He always rose at six o'clock and went to bed at eight,And never lay abed till noon; and never sat up late.He finished Latin, French and Greek when he was ten year old,And knew the Spanish alphabet as soon as he was told.He never, never thought of play until his work was done,He labored hard from break of day until the set of sun.He never scraped his muddy shoes upon the parlor floor,And never answered, back his ma, and never banged the door."But, truly, I could never see," said little Dick Molloy,"How he could never do these things and really be a boy."E.A. Brininstool.
"Which shall it be? which shall it be?"I looked at John,—John looked at me,(Dear, patient John, who loves me yetAs well as though my locks were jet.)And when I found that I must speak,My voice seemed strangely low and weak;"Tell me again what Robert said";And then I listening bent my head."This is his letter:'I will giveA house and land while you shall live,If, in return, from out your seven,One child to me for aye is given.'"I looked at John's old garments worn,I thought of all that John had borneOf poverty, and work, and care,Which I, though willing, could not share;Of seven hungry mouths to feed,Of seven little children's need,And then of this."Come John," said I,"We'll choose among them as they lieAsleep"; so walking hand in hand,Dear John and I surveyed our band.First to the cradle lightly stepped,Where Lilian, the baby, slept;Her damp curls lay, like gold alight,A glory 'gainst the pillow white;Softly her father stooped to layHis rough hand down in loving way,When dream or whisper made her stir,And huskily he said, "Nother."We stooped beside the trundle-bed,And one long ray of lamp-light shedAthwart the boyish faces there,In sleep so pitiful and fair.I saw on Jamie's rough red cheekA tear undried; ere John could speak,"He's but a baby too," said I,And kissed him as we hurried by.Pale, patient Robby's angel faceStill in his sleep bore suffering's trace;"No, for a thousand crowns not him,"He whispered, while our eyes were dim.Poor Dick! sad Dick! our wayward son,Turbulent, reckless, idle one,—Couldhebe spared? "Nay, He who gaveBids us befriend him to the grave;Only a mother's heart can bePatient enough for such as he;And so," said John, "I would not dareTo send him from her bedside prayer."Then stole we softly up above,And knelt by Mary, child of love;"Perhaps forher'twould better be,"I said to John. Quite silentlyHe lifted up a curl, that layAcross her cheek in wilful way,And shook his head; "Nay, love, not thee";The while my heart beat audibly.Only one more, our eldest lad,Trusty and truthful, good and glad,—So like his father: "No, John, no;I cannot, will not, let him go!"And so we wrote, in courteous way,We could not give one child away;And afterward toil lighter seemed,Thinking of that of which we dreamed;Happy, in truth, that not one faceWe missed from its accustomed place;Thankful to work for all the seven,Trusting then to One in heaven.Ethel Lynn Beers.
It was a starry night in June, the air was soft and still,When the "minute-men" from Cambridge came, and gathered on the hill;Beneath us lay the sleeping town, around us frowned the fleet,But the pulse of freemen, not of slaves, within our bosoms beat;And every heart rose high with hope, as fearlessly we said,"We will be numbered with the free, or numbered with the dead!""Bring out the line to mark the trench, and stretch it on the sward!"The trench is marked, the tools are brought, we utter not a word,But stack our guns, then fall to work with mattock and with spade,A thousand men with sinewy arms, and not a sound is made;So still were we, the stars beneath, that scarce a whisper fell;We heard the red-coat's musket click, and heard him cry, "All's well!"See how the morn, is breaking; the red is in the sky!The mist is creeping from the stream that floats in silence by;The "Lively's" hall looms through the fog, and they our works have spied,For the ruddy flash and round-shot part in thunder from her side;And the "Falcon" and the "Cerberus" make every bosom thrill,With gun and shell, and drum and bell, and boatswain's whistle shrill;But deep and wider grows the trench, as spade and mattock ply,For we have to cope with fearful odds, and the time is drawing nigh!Up with the pine-tree banner! Our gallant Prescott standsAmid the plunging shells and shot, and plants it with his hands;Up with the shout! for Putnam comes upon his reeking bay,With bloody spur and foaming bit, in haste to join the fray.But thou whose soul is glowing in the summer of thy years,Unvanquishable Warren, thou, the youngest of thy peers,Wert born and bred, and shaped and made, to act a patriot's part,And dear to us thy presence is as heart's blood to the heart!Hark! from the town a trumpet! The barges at the wharfAre crowded with the living freight; and now they're pushing off;With clash and glitter, trump and drum, in all its bright array,Behold the splendid sacrifice move slowly o'er the bay!And still and still the barges fill, and still across the deep,Like thunder clouds along the sky, the hostile transports sweep.And now they're forming at the Point; and now the lines advance:We see beneath the sultry sun their polished bayonets glance;We hear anear the throbbing drum, the bugle-challenge ring;Quick bursts and loud the flashing cloud, and rolls from wing to wing;But on the height our bulwark stands, tremendous in its gloom,—As sullen as a tropic sky, and silent as a tomb.And so we waited till we saw, at scarce ten rifles' length,The old vindictive Saxon spite, in all its stubborn strength;When sudden, flash on flash, around the jagged rampart burstFrom every gun the livid light upon the foe accursed.Then quailed a monarch's might before a free-born people's ire;Then drank the sward the veteran's life, where swept the yeoman's fire.Then, staggered by the shot, he saw their serried columns reel,And fall, as falls the bearded rye beneath the reaper's steel;And then arose a mighty shout that might have waked the dead,—"Hurrah! they run! the field is won! Hurrah! the foe is fled!"And every man hath dropped his gun to clutch a neighbor's hand,As his heart kept praying all the while for home and native land.Thrice on that day we stood the shock of thrice a thousand foes,And thrice that day within our lines the shout of victory rose;And though our swift fire slackened then, and, reddening in the skies,We saw from Charlestown's roofs and walls the flamy columns rise,Yet while we had a cartridge left, we still maintained the fight,Nor gained the foe one foot of ground upon that blood-stained height.What though for us no laurels bloom, and o'er the nameless braveNo sculptured trophy, scroll, nor hatch records a warrior grave!What though the day to us was lost!—upon that deathless pageThe everlasting charter stands for every land and age!For man hath broke his felon bonds, and cast them in the dust,And claimed his heritage divine, and justified the trust;While through his rifted prison-bars the hues of freedom pour,O'er every nation, race and clime, on every sea and shore,Such glories as the patriarch viewed, when, mid the darkest skies,He saw above a ruined world the Bow of Promise rise.F.S. Cozzens.
We squander health in search of wealth;We scheme and toil and save;Then squander wealth in search of health,But only find a grave.We live, and boast of what we own;We die, and only get a stone.
It may be that the words I spokeTo cheer him on his way,To him were vain, but I myselfWas braver all that day.Winifred Webb.
Billy's dead, and gone to glory—so is Billy's sister Nell:There's a tale I know about them, were I poet I would tell;Soft it comes, with perfume laden, like a breath of country airWafted down the filthy alley, bringing fragrant odors there.In that vile and filthy alley, long ago one winter's day,Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient Billy lay,While beside him sat his sister, in the garret's dismal gloom,Cheering with her gentle presence Billy's pathway to the tomb.Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child,Till his eyes lost half their anguish, and his worn, wan features smiled;Tales herself had heard haphazard, caught amid the Babel roar,Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mothers' door.Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she toldHow beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold,Where, when all the pain was over,—where, when all the tears were shed,—He would be a white-frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head.Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Saviour's love,How He'd built for little children great big playgrounds up above,Where they sang and played at hopscotch and at horses all the day,And where beadles and policemen never frightened them away.This was Nell's idea of heaven,—just a bit of what she'd heard,With a little bit invented, and a little bit inferred.But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand,For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the promised land."Yes," he whispered, "I can see it, I can see it, sister Nell,Oh, the children look so happy and they're all so strong and well;I can see them there with Jesus—He is playing with them, too!Let as run away and join them, if there's room for me and you."She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spentIn the garret and the alley, where they starved to pay the rent;Where a drunken father's curses and a drunken mother's blowsDrove her forth into the gutter from the day's dawn to its close.But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell this sinking boy,"You must die before you're able all the blessings to enjoy.You must die," she whispered, "Billy, and I am not even ill;But I'll come to you, dear brother,—yes, I promise that I will."You are dying, little brother, you are dying, oh, so fast;I heard father say to mother that he knew you couldn't last.They will put you in a coffin, then you'll wake and be up there,While I'm left alone to suffer in this garret bleak and bare.""Yes, I know it," answered Billy. "Ah, but, sister, I don't mind,Gentle Jesus will not beat me; He's not cruel or unkind.But I can't help thinking, Nelly, I should like to take awaySomething, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day."In the summer you remember how the mission took us outTo a great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about,And the van that took us halted by a sweet bright patch of land,Where the fine red blossoms grew, dear, half as big as mother's hand."Nell, I asked the good kind teacher what they called such flowers as those,And he told me, I remember, that the pretty name was rose.I have never seen them since, dear—how I wish that I had one!Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I'm up beyond the sun."Not a word said little Nelly; but at night, when Billy slept,On she flung her scanty garments and then down the stairs she crept.Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn,Running on and running ever till the night had changed to dawn.When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away,All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay.She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet,But there came no flowery gardens her poor tearful eyes to greet.She had traced the road by asking, she had learnt the way to go;She had found the famous meadow—it was wrapped in cruel snow;Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant bladeShowed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed;With her eyes upcast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground,And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found.Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim;And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb."Oh, a rose!" she moaned, "good Jesus,—just a rose to take to Bill!"And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill;And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet;As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly's feet.Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret,And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet;But the poor, half-blinded Nelly thought it fallen from the skies,And she murmured, "Thank you, Jesus!" as she clasped the dainty prize.Lo! that night from but the alley did a child's soul pass away,From dirt and sin and misery up to where God's children play.Lo! that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o'er the land,And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.Billy's dead, and gone to glory—so is Billy's sister Nell;Am I bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell,—That the children met in heaven, after all their earthly woes,And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, "Billy, here's your rose"?George R. Sims.
Mine is a wild, strange story,—the strangest you ever heard;There are many who won't believe it, but it's gospel, every word;It's the biggest drama of any in a long, adventurous life;The scene was a ship, and the actors—were myself and my new-wed wife.You musn't mind if I ramble, and lose the thread now and then;I'm old, you know, and I wander—it's a way with old women and men,For their lives lie all behind them, and their thoughts go far away,And are tempted afield, like children lost on a summer day.The years must be five-and-twenty that have passed since that awful night,But I see it again this evening, I can never shut out the sight.We were only a few weeks married, I and the wife, you know,When we had an offer for Melbourne, and made up our minds to go.We'd acted together in England, traveling up and downWith a strolling band of players, going from town to town;We played the lovers together—we were leading lady and gent—And at last we played in earnest, and straight to the church we went.The parson gave us his blessing, and I gave Nellie the ring,And swore that I'd love and cherish, and endow her with everything.How we smiled at that part of the service when I said "I thee endow"!But as to the "love and cherish," I meant to keep that vow.We were only a couple of strollers; we had coin when the show was good,When it wasn't we went without it, and we did the best we could.We were happy, and loved each other, and laughed at the shifts we made,—Where love makes plenty of sunshine, there poverty casts no shade.Well, at last we got to London, and did pretty well for a bit;Then the business dropped to nothing, and the manager took a flit,—Stepped off one Sunday morning, forgetting the treasury call;But our luck was in, and we managed right on our feet to fall.We got an offer for Melbourne,—got it that very week.Those were the days when thousands went over to fortune seek,The days of the great gold fever, and a manager thought the spotGood for a "spec," and took us as actors among his lot.We hadn't a friend in England—we'd only ourselves to please—And we jumped at the chance of trying our fortune across the seas.We went on a sailing vessel, and the journey was long and rough;We hadn't been out a fortnight before we had had enough.But use is a second nature, and we'd got not to mind a storm,When misery came upon us,—came in a hideous form.My poor little wife fell ailing, grew worse, and at last so badThat the doctor said she was dying,—I thought 'twould have sent me mad,—Dying where leagues of billows seemed to shriek for their prey,And the nearest land was hundreds—aye, thousands—of miles away.She raved one night in a fever, and the next lay still as death,So still I'd to bend and listen for the faintest sign of breath.She seemed in a sleep, and sleeping, with a smile on her thin, wan face,—She passed away one morning, while I prayed to the throne of grace.I knelt in the little cabin, and prayer after prayer I said,Till the surgeon came and told me it was useless—my wife was dead!Dead! I wouldn't believe it. They forced me away that night,For I raved in my wild despairing, the shock sent me mad outright.I was shut in the farthest cabin, and I beat my head on the side,And all day long in my madness, "They've murdered her!" I cried.They locked me away from my fellows,—put me in cruel chains,It seems I had seized a weapon to beat out the surgeon's brains.I cried in my wild, mad fury, that he was a devil sentTo gloat o'er the frenzied anguish with which my heart was rent.I spent that night with the irons heavy upon my wrists,And my wife lay dead quite near me. I beat with my fettered fists,Beat at my prison panels, and then—O God!—and thenI heard the shrieks of women and the tramp of hurrying men.I heard the cry, "Ship afire!" caught up by a hundred throats,And over the roar the captain shouting to lower the boats;Then cry upon cry, and curses, and the crackle of burning wood,And the place grew hot as a furnace, I could feel it where I stood.I beat at the door and shouted, but never a sound came back,And the timbers above me started, till right through a yawning crackI could see the flames shoot upward, seizing on mast and sail,Fanned in their burning fury by the breath of the howling gale.I dashed at the door in fury, shrieking, "I will not die!Die in this burning prison!"—but I caught no answering cry.Then, suddenly, right upon me, the flames crept up with a roar,And their fiery tongues shot forward, cracking my prison door.I was free—with the heavy iron door dragging me down to death;I fought my way to the cabin, choked with the burning breathOf the flames that danced around me like man-mocking fiends at play,And then—O God! I can see it, and shall to my dying day.There lay my Nell as they'd left her, dead in her berth that night;The flames flung a smile on her features,—a horrible, lurid light.God knows how I reached and touched her, but I found myself by her side;I thought she was living a moment, I forgot that my Nell had died.In the shock of those awful seconds reason came back to my brain;I heard a sound as of breathing, and then a low cry of pain;Oh, was there mercy in heaven? Was there a God in the skies?The dead woman's lips were moving, the dead woman opened her eyes.I cursed like a madman raving—I cried to her, "Nell! my Nell!"They had left us alone and helpless, alone in that burning hell;They had left us alone to perish—forgotten me living—and sheHad been left for the fire to bear her to heaven, instead of the sea.I clutched at her, roused her shrieking, the stupor was on her still;I seized her in spite of my fetters,—fear gave a giant's will.God knows how I did it, but blindly I fought through the flames and the wreckUp—up to the air, and brought her safe to the untouched deck.We'd a moment of life together,—a moment of life, the timeFor one last word to each other,—'twas a moment supreme, sublime.From the trance we'd for death mistaken, the heat had brought her to life,And I was fettered and helpless, so we lay there, husband and wife!It was but a moment, but ages seemed to have passed away,When a shout came over the water, and I looked, and lo, there lay,Right away from the vessel, a boat that was standing by;They had seen our forms on the vessel, as the flames lit up the sky.I shouted a prayer to Heaven, then called to my wife, and sheTore with new strength at my fetters—God helped her, and I was free;Then over the burning bulwarks we leaped for one chance of life.Did they save us? Well, here I am, sir, and yonder's my dear old wife.We were out in the boat till daylight, when a great ship passing byTook us on board, and at Melbourne landed us by and by.We've played many parts in dramas since we went on that famous trip,But ne'er such a scene together as we had on the burning ship!George B. Sims.
A sad-faced little fellow sits alone in deep disgrace,There's a lump arising in his throat, tears streaming down his face;He wandered from his playmates, for he doesn't want to hearTheir shouts of merry laughter, since the world has lost its cheer;He has sipped the cup of sorrow, he has drained the bitter glass,And his heart is fairly breaking; he's the boy who didn't pass.In the apple tree the robin sings a cheery little song,But he doesn't seem to hear it, showing plainly something's wrong;Comes his faithful little spaniel for a romp and bit of play,But the troubled little fellow sternly bids him go away.All alone he sits in sorrow, with his hair a tangled mass,And his eyes are red with weeping; he's the boy who didn't pass.How he hates himself for failing, he can hear his playmates jeer,For they've left him with the dullards—gone ahead a half a year,And he tried so hard to conquer, oh, he tried to do his best,But now he knows, he's weaker, yes, and duller than the rest.He's ashamed to tell his mother, for he thinks she'll hate him, too—The little boy who didn't pass, who failed of getting through.Oh, you who boast a laughing son, and speak of him as bright,And you who love a little girl who comes to you at nightWith smiling eyes, with dancing feet, with honors from her school,Turn to that lonely little boy who thinks he is a fool,And take him kindly by the hand, the dullest in his class,He is the one who most needs love, the boy who didn't pass.
Yes, it's a quiet station, but it suits me well enough;I want a bit of the smooth now, for I've had my share o' rough.This berth that the company gave me, they gave as the work was light;I was never fit for the signals after one awful night,I'd been in the box from a younker, and I'd never felt the strainOf the lives at my right hand's mercy in every passing train.One day there was something happened, and it made my nerves go queer,And it's all through that as you find me the station-master here.I was on at the box down yonder—that's where we turn the mails,And specials, and fast expresses, on to the center rails;The side's for the other traffic—the luggage and local slows.It was rare hard work at Christmas, when double the traffic grows.I've been in the box down yonder nigh sixteen hours a day,Till my eyes grew dim and heavy, and my thoughts went all astray;But I've worked the points half-sleeping—and once I slept outright,Till the roar of the Limited woke me, and I nearly died with fright.Then I thought of the lives in peril, and what might have been their fateHad I sprung to the points that evening a tenth of a tick too late;And a cold and ghastly shiver ran icily through my frameAs I fancied the public clamor, the trial, and bitter shame.I could see the bloody wreckage—I could see the mangled slain—And the picture was seared for ever, blood-red, on my heated brain.That moment my nerve was shattered, for I couldn't shut out the thoughtOf the lives I held in my keeping, and the ruin that might be wrought.That night in our little cottage, as I kissed our sleeping child,My wife looked up from her sewing, and told me, as she smiled,That Johnny had made his mind up—he'd be a pointsman, too."He says when he's big, like daddy, he'll work in the box with you."I frowned, for my heart was heavy, and my wife she saw the look;Lord bless you! my little Alice could read me like a book.I'd to tell her of what had happened, and I said that I must leave,For a pointsman's arm ain't trusty when terror lurks in his sleeve.But she cheered me up in a minute, and that night, ere we went to sleep,She made me give her a promise, which I swore that I'd always keep—It was always to do my duty. "Do that, and then, come what will,You'll have no worry." said Alice, "if things go well or ill.There's something that always tells us the thing that we ought to do"—My wife was a bit religious, and in with the chapel crew.But I knew she was talking reason, and I said to myself, says I,"I won't give in like a coward, it's a scare that'll soon go by."Now, the very next day the missus had to go to the market town;She'd the Christmas things to see to, and she wanted to buy a gown.She'd be gone for a spell, for the Parley didn't come back till eight,And I knew, on a Christmas Eve, too, the trains would be extra late.So she settled to leave me Johnny, and then she could turn the key—For she'd have some parcels to carry, and the boy would be safe with me.He was five, was our little Johnny, and quiet, and nice, and good—He was mad to go with daddy, and I'd often promised he should.It was noon when the missus started,—her train went by my box;She could see, as she passed my window, her darling's curly locks,I lifted him up to mammy, and he kissed his little hand,Then sat, like a mouse, in the corner, and thought it was fairyland.But somehow I fell a-thinking of a scene that would not fade,Of how I had slept on duty, until I grew afraid;For the thought would weigh upon me, one day I might come to lieIn a felon's cell for the slaughter of those I had doomed to die.The fit that had come upon me, like a hideous nightmare seemed,Till I rubbed my eyes and started like a sleeper who has dreamed.For a time the box had vanished—I'd worked like a mere machine—My mind had been on the wander, and I'd neither heard nor seen,With a start I thought of Johnny, and I turned the boy to seek,Then I uttered a groan of anguish, for my lips refused to speak;There had flashed such a scene of horror swift on my startled sightThat it curdled my blood in terror and sent my red lips white.It was all in one awful moment—I saw that the boy was lost:He had gone for a toy, I fancied, some child from a train had tossed;The local was easing slowly to stop at the station here,And the limited mail was coming, and I had the line to clear.I could hear the roar of the engine, I could almost feel its breath,And right on the center metals stood my boy in the jaws of death;On came the fierce fiend, tearing straight for the center line,And the hand that must wreck or save it, O merciful God, was mine!'Twas a hundred lives or Johnny's. O Heaven! what could I do?—Up to God's ear that moment a wild, fierce question flew—"What shall I do, O Heaven?" and sudden and loud and clearOn the wind came the words, "Your duty," borne to my listening ear.Then I set my teeth, and my breathing was fierce and short and quick."My boy!" I cried, but he heard not; and then I went blind and sick;The hot black smoke of the engine came with a rush before,I turned the mail to the center, and by it flew with a roar.Then I sank on my knees in horror, and hid my ashen face—I had given my child to Heaven; his life was a hundred's grace.Had I held my hand a moment, I had hurled the flying mailTo shatter the creeping local that stood on the other rail!Where is my boy, my darling? O God! let me hide my eyes.How can I look—his father—on that which there mangled lies?That voice!—O merciful Heaven!—'tis the child's, and he calls my name!I hear, but I cannot see him, for my eyes are filled with flame.I knew no more that night, sir, for I fell, as I heard the boy;The place reeled round, and I fainted,—swooned with the sudden joy.But I heard on the Christmas morning, when I woke in my own warm bedWith Alice's arms around me, and a strange wild dream in my head,That she'd come by the early local, being anxious about the lad,And had seen him there on the metals, and the sight nigh drove her mad—She had seen him just as the engine of the Limited closed my view,And she leapt on the line and saved him just as the mail dashed through.She was back in the train in a second, and both were safe and sound;The moment they stopped at the station she ran here, and I was foundWith my eyes like a madman's glaring, and my face a ghastly white:I heard the boy, and I fainted, and I hadn't my wits that night.Who told me to do my duty? What voice was that on the wind?Was it fancy that brought it to me? or were there God's lips behind?If I hadn't 'a' done my duty—had I ventured to disobey—My bonny boy and his mother might have died by my hand that day.George R. Sims.