Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two. Various

      In an attic bare and cheerless, Jim the newsboy dying lay

      On a rough but clean straw pallet, at the fading of the day;

      Scant the furniture about him but bright flowers were in the room,

      Crimson phloxes, waxen lilies, roses laden with perfume.

      On a table by the bedside open at a well-worn page,

      Where the mother had been reading lay a Bible stained by age,

      Now he could not hear the verses; he was flighty, and she wept

      With her arms around her youngest, who close to her side had crept.

      Blacking boots and selling papers, in all weathers day by day,

      Brought upon poor Jim consumption, which was eating life away,

      And this cry came with his anguish for each breath a struggle cost,

      "'Ere's the morning Sun and 'Erald—latest news of steamship lost.

      Papers, mister? Morning papers?" Then the cry fell to a moan,

      Which was changed a moment later to another frenzied tone:

      "Black yer boots, sir? Just a nickel! Shine 'em like an evening star.

      It grows late, Jack! Night is coming. Evening papers, here they are!"

      Soon a mission teacher entered, and approached the humble bed;

      Then poor Jim's mind cleared an instant, with his cool hand on his head,

      "Teacher," cried he, "I remember what you said the other day,

      Ma's been reading of the Saviour, and through Him I see my way.

      He is with me! Jack, I charge you of our mother take good care

      When Jim's gone! Hark! boots or papers, which will I be over there?

      Black yer boots, sir? Shine 'em right up! Papers! Read God's book instead,

      Better'n papers that to die on! Jack—" one gasp, and Jim was dead!

      Floating from that attic chamber came the teacher's voice in prayer,

      And it soothed the bitter sorrow of the mourners kneeling there,

      He commended them to Heaven, while the tears rolled down his face,

      Thanking God that Jim had listened to sweet words of peace and grace,

      Ever 'mid the want and squalor of the wretched and the poor,

      Kind hearts find a ready welcome, and an always open door;

      For the sick are in strange places, mourning hearts are everywhere,

      And such need the voice of kindness, need sweet sympathy and prayer.

      Break, break, break,

      On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

      And I would that my tongue could utter

      The thoughts that arise in me.

      O well for the fisherman's boy

      That he shouts with his sister at play!

      O well for the sailor lad

      That he sings in his boat on the bay!

      And the stately ships go on

      To their haven under the hill;

      But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

      And the sound of a voice that is still!

      Break, break, break,

      At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

      But the tender grace of a day that is dead

      Will never come back to me.

      Don't kill the birds, the pretty birds,

      That sing about your door,

      Soon as the joyous spring has come,

      And chilling storms are o'er.

      The little birds, how sweet they sing!

      Oh! let them joyous live;

      And never seek to take the life

      That you can never give.

      Don't kill the birds, the pretty birds,

      That play among the trees;

      'Twould make the earth a cheerless place,

      Should we dispense with these.

      The little birds, how fond they play!

      Do not disturb their sport;

      But let them warble forth their songs,

      Till winter cuts them short.

      Don't kill the birds, the happy birds,

      That bless the fields and grove;

      So innocent to look upon,

      They claim our warmest love.

      The happy birds, the tuneful birds,

      How pleasant 'tis to see!

      No spot can be a cheerless place

      Where'er their presence be.

      I've got a letter, parson, from my son away out West,

      An' my old heart is heavy as an anvil in my breast,

      To think the boy whose future I had once so nicely planned

      Should wander from the right and come to such a bitter end.

      I told him when he left us, only three short years ago,

      He'd find himself a-plowing in a mighty crooked row;

      He'd miss his father's counsel and his mother's prayers, too,

      But he said the farm was hateful, an' he guessed he'd have to go.

      I know there's big temptations for a youngster in the West,

      But I believed our Billy had the courage to resist;

      An' when he left I warned him of the ever waitin' snares

      That lie like hidden serpents in life's pathway everywheres.

      But Bill, he promised faithful to be careful, an' allowed

      That he'd build a reputation that'd make us mighty proud.

      But it seems as how my counsel sort o' faded from his mind,

      And now he's got in trouble of the very worstest kind!

      His letters came so seldom that I somehow sort o' knowed

      That Billy was a-trampin' of a mighty rocky road;

      But never once imagined he would bow my head in shame,

      And in the dust would woller his old daddy's honored name.

      He writes from out in Denver, an' the story's mighty short—

      I jess can't tell his mother!—It'll crush her poor old heart!

      An' so I reckoned, parson, you might break the news to her—

      Bill's in the Legislature but he doesn't say what fur!

      An old man going a lone highway,

      Came,

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