Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1868-07-03
Found Dead.

Fonnd dead in doorway on Chestnut street,
Inst when the night and morning meet,
An elderly man with scant, white hair,
And all that told what mad brought him there,
Was "a bottle Ofbrandy, or gin, or rum,
To show that the murder, by drink, was done.
Drifted the cruel snow o'er his form,
Pelted adown all the merciless storm,
Icices formed il his tangled hair,
Fruze to his ZEN lie and crusted there.
) if were the fingers, 50 wlinkled and thin
Through ra.s, rents un1 tatters, the ice breath
crept in,
Blue, cold and tr zyu, the poor, tired feet
Uvered alone by The DiJter nights seet.
Down in his eyes the one gaslight glared-
And nobody knew him, and nobody cared!
Out in the whirling, binding snow,
Who was the outcast Does nobody know
Nobody knew and nobody cared
How either the soul or body Jared
Only the bottle the story told,
Homeless and helpless, friendless and old,
Stupefed, starving, suffering, sick!
Showed Showed to the side by a selfish world,
Careless how soon to eternity hurled.
o, the ushering out of that lonely soul!
No bell in the TALL grand steeple to toll,
No mourners to gather and weep around,
Only the wind with its wailng sound.
Only the trees tossed their skeleton arms
Against the sky, at the winds alarms;
Long, long ago on a fond mothers breast,
He may have pillowed to innocent rest,
Mothers love bent over linn, over him wept-
Over him many a long vigil kept;
Fondled HIM tenderly, lOvelingly smiled
For in the past, he was somebody's child
Somebody's darling, somebody's pet
Sure mother love them, was as mother love yet
Smooth back the scattered locks from the poor
brow,
As did the mother Once-strangers do now.
Lift him up tenderly, bear him away,
Jeer not at his weakness, nor cruel words say,
For the sake Of the white hairs, though fallen SO
low
How much he was tempted, none Of us knew.
After him long years, the foe may have crept,
Watched him while waking, still watched as he
slept,
Ro5bing him, torturing, stealing his youth;
Sowing the seed for his last hours ruth.
Taunting him, sneering, crushing him down,
Sending him staggering tout OF the town."
Out of happy home, out of its light,
Into despair, darkness gloomiest night,
We only see with our earth vision weak,
AS mortals we judge, and as mortals we speak,
Above there IS One, all true and all wise,
Who, looking adown from the upper skies,
And reading each heart in its secret thought,
Understands, comprehends, when we descern
not.
And out in that lonly night, starless and cold,
With that poor wanderer, weary and old,
He may have been, and forgiven all!
Heeds He not even the sparrows fall
Saved He not even the thief on the tree
Such was our lesson of dear Calvary.
But weep for the living, ay, shudder for them,
Weep for the fallen and tempted Of men.
Moan, moan, for the widows and orphans rum
makes!
Moan, moan, for the hearts that the rumseller
breaks
Think you of the lives he has wasted and spoiled
Look you at his garments, with blood stains how
soIed
Wen Dc rhe knife and the rome and the ball.
owe him a tJhe. for he teedeth them all
I look at the bubbles that dance on the edge,
hook at the cutor, so ruuy and bright,
.4a see just no.ow II ue-psir's darkest night!
l.. .hat cups hUuyy,d dyp,h there is direst Of
woe.
Doyou ,ubt? Do YOU doubt that dead man
toaod 1t 50!
Dead, dead III a doorway on Chestnut street
Thence to a final judgment seat;
Tbanca +O the stems Of the Great White Throne
Into His presence who sits thereon,
The greatest maker Of greatest laws;
The truest judge of the criminals cause
Dead, dead, in the doorway alone, all alone
Only the night wind to echo his moan,
But above, from his great throne, the Grea
Judge saw,
The Just Judge who judged the liquor law,
The liquor itself, the accursed thing
The liquor slaves, and the liquor king