Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
To an Italian Beggar-Boy
By Elizabeth Clementine Kinney (1810–1889)T
I see thy meagre form
Along the highway go,
Starvation’s spectre! Storm
And sun alike
Unheeded strike
That head which doth no covering know.
Like a young wolf’s, dread boy!
Fearful is childhood’s stare,
Bereft of childhood’s joy:
It makes me wild
To see a child
Who never gladdened at a toy.
That makes a child a dread!
Where children’s smiles are not,
Thorns grow in flowerets’ stead;
A child’s glad face
Is Heaven’s own grace
Round manhood’s stern existence shed.
It gnaws at Pity’s heart!
Here’s bread; but come not nigh—
Thy look makes agues start!
There, take the whole;
To thy starved soul
No crumb of joy will bread impart.
Of a young heart unfed,
The hollow spirit’s sigh
For something more than bread.
“Give! give!” it says:
Ah, vain he prays
To man, who prayer to God ne’er said!
Did human mother’s breast
Nourish thee, thing forlorn?
Hath any love carest
Thine infant cheek?
Didst ever speak,
Or hear, the name of father blest?
Thou art the birth of Want;
Thy sire was Misery,
Thy mother Famine gaunt:
Thou hadst no home,—
The naked dome
Was all the covering Earth could grant.
Of real children come,
Their lips the fond names group
Of Father, Mother, Home!
They go not far—
Love is the star
That draws them back whene’er they roam.
Dost thou pursue these now?
Hath childhood any kin
Or kith with such as thou?
One hand did form
The bird and worm—
No other kinship these allow.
Fresh from those well-fed throats;
Old age leans on his staff
To listen to its notes:
The gush of joy
Makes him a boy,—
How glad remembrance o’er it gloats!
Jerked from thy shrunken chest,
A human effort seem
To laugh among the rest?
It shocks the ear,
O God! to hear
Woe, through a child’s false laugh, confest!
One Father, each who owns?
How partial blessings fall
Upon his little ones!
Why, outcast boy,
Must thou mock joy,
While these pour out its natural tones?
Short-sighted soul, and wait,
To learn why worms are crushed
While birds sing at heaven’s gate;
Why pools infect,
While lakes reflect
The pure sky, and bear Fortune’s freight.