The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1871-09-05

From the Times and Chronicle
''OVER THE, HILLS TO THE
POOR HOUSE,
CHAPTER II.-BY MAY MIGNONETTE.

POOR HOUSE,"
CHAPTER II.-BY MAY MIGNoNETTE.
Over the hills to the poor-house sad paths hav
been made to-day,
For sorrow is near. such as maketh the heads o
the young turn gray,
Causing the heart of the careless to throb will
fevered breath
The sorrow that leads to the chamber who's,
light has gone out in death.
To Susan, Rebecca and Isaac, to Thomas and
Charley, word sped
That ''mother was i'll and fast failing, perhaps
when they heard might be dead"
But e'en while they wrote she was praying that
come of her children might come,
To hear from her lips their last blessing before
she should start for her home.
To Susan, poor Susan! how bitter the agony
brought By the call,
For deep in her heart for her mother widVooms
nad Oeen left after all,
And now that she thought by her freside one
place had been vacant for years
And while ''o'er the hills" she was speeding her
path might be traced by her tears.
Rebecca? she heard not the tidings, but those
who bent over her knew
That led by the Angel of Death, near the waves
of the river she drew;
Delirious, ever she told them her mother was
cooling her head,
While, weeping, they thought that ere morning
both mother and child might be dead.
And, kneeling beside her, stern Isaac was quiv-
ring in aspen-like grief,
While waves of sad mem'ry surged DER him
like pillows of wind oer the leaf;
"Too late" were the words that had humbled
his cold, naughty pride to the dust,
And Peace, with her olive-boughs laden, crown
ed loving forgivness with trust.
Bowed over his letters and papers sat Thomas,
his brow lined by thought,
But little he needed the markets or news of his
gains that they brought;
His lips grew as pale as his cheek, but new pur-
poses seemed born in his eye,
And Thomas went ''over the hills" to the mother
that shortly must die.
To Ghar1axy har hor r,riIa he
mothers message that morn,
And he was away "o'er the hills" ere the sun
light blushed over the corn;
And strangest of all, by his side walked the
wife he had drought from the town."
And silently wept, while her tears strung with
diamonds her pale morning gown.
For each had been thinking, of late, how they
missed the old mothers sweet smile,
And wond'ring how they could have been SO
blind and unjust all the while;
They thought of their harsh, cruel words, and
longed to atone for the past,
When swift Ger the heart of vain dreams swept
the presence of deaths chilling blast
So into the chamber of death, one by one these
sad children had crept,
AS they. in their childhood, had done, when
mother was tired and slept;
And peace, rich as then, came to each, as they
drank in her blessing, so deep,
That, breathing into her life, she fell back into
her last blessed sleep.
And when, ''o'er the hills from the poor house,"
that mother is tenderly borne,
The life of her life, her loved children, tread
softly, and silently mourn,
For theirs is no rivulet sorrow, but deep as the
ocean is deep,
And into our lives with sweet healing. the balm
of their bruising may creep.
For swift came the hashings of temper,and tor
rents of words came as swift,
Till out 'niong the tide waves of anger how Of
ten we thoughtlessly drift!
And heads that are gray with Ife's ashes, and
feet that walk down 'mong the dead,
We send 'oer the hills to the poor-house' for
loye, and, it may be, for bread.
)h! when shall we value the living while yet
the keen sickle is stayed,
Nor slight the wild flower in its blooming, till
all its sweet lif is decayed
Yet often the fragrance is richest when poured
from the bruised blossoms SOUL
And "over the hills from the poor house" the
rarest of melodies roll.
FAYETTE, Iowa.