Classic Poem

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!

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!

Yes, it's truthful, 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.

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 gentle 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!

Oh, it's not enough those people own the very ground we tread,
And the shelter that we crouch in, and the tools that earn our bread;
They must place their blotted mortgage on the air and on the sky,
And shut out our little heaven, till our children droop and die!

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;
But the love they bear is mockery to the gracious God on high,
If to give those children luxuries some one else's child must die!

Oh, we wear the cheapest clothing, and our meals are scant and brief,
And perhaps those fellows fancy there's a cheaper grade of grief;
But the people all around here, losing children, friends, and mates,
Can inform them that Affliction hasn't any under-rates .

I'm no grumbler at the rulers of " this free and happy land, "
And I don't go 'round explaining things I do not understand;
But I know there's something treacherous in the working of the law,
When we get a dose of poison out of every breath we draw.

I have talked too much, good Preacher, and I hope you won't be vexed,
But I'm going to make a sermon with that white face for a text;
And I'll preach it, and I'll preach it, till I set the people wild
O'er the heartless, reckless grasping of the men who killed my child!