The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1883-02-22
a CITY BALLAD.
WILL CARLETON.

Yes, it's straight and true, good preach
er, every word that you have said;
Do not think these tears unmanly-
they're the first that / have shed,
But they kind of pressed and pounded on
my aching heart and brain,
And they could not be let GO of, and they
gave me extra pain.
Pm an ignorant day-worker-work for
food and rags and sleep
And / hardly know the object of the life
we slave to keep;
But / know when days are CHEEKY, or my
heart it made of lead;
Iknow sorrow when | see it-and l know
my child is dead.
No, she isn't much to look at, just plain
ish bit of clay,
OF the sort of perished children you are
seeing every day;
And how she could break life up you'd
be slow to understand;
But she held mine, Mr.. Preacher, i'll that
little withercd hand.
/ am just a laboring man, sir, of the kind
that digs and delves,
But I've learned that human natures can
not stay in by themselves;
They will wander out for something, be it
good or be it bad,
And my heart with her had settled, and
the girl was all 1 had.
There are lots of pretty children, with
form and face 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 cut apart,
And it's rough-this amputatiOn of the
strong arms Of the heart!
'Tis consoling NJ. Preacher, and it may
be rs you've said
God loves children while they're living
and adopts them when they're dead.
But my brain wont quit contriving, do
the very best l can,
That twas not Gods mercy took her, but,
the selfishneSs of man.
Why she lay here faint and gasping, moan
ing for bit of air.
Checked and strangled by the foul breath
of the chimneys over there;
For it climbed through every window,
andit crept beneath the door,
And tried to bar against it, but she only
checked the more.
She would lie here 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 sift her pale, pinched face
up, full of early grief and care,
And would whisper, ~ am dying for
little breath Of air."
If, she'd gone out with the zephyrs
'twOuldn't have seemed so hard to
me,
Or among the cool fresh breezes that come
rushing from the sea;
But it's nothing less than murder when
my darling's every breath
Checked and strangled with the poiso n
from that cursed swamp of death.
Oh, tits not enough that such men own
the very ground we tread,
And the shelter that we crouch in, and the
tools that earn our bread;
They must put their blotted mortgage ON
the air and on the sky,
And shut out our little heaven, till our
children pine and die!
Yes we wear the cheapest clothing, and
our meals are scant and brief,
And perhaps those fellows fancy there's
cheaper grade of grief;
But the people all around mere, losing
children, friends and mates,
Can inform them that affliction hasn't any
undertakes.
Oh, the air is pure and wholesome where
some babies crow aud rest,
And they trim them out with ribbons,
and they feed 'em with the best;
But the love they gets an insult to the
God of loveon high,
If to earn those children's living some one
else's child must die.
Pm no grumbler at the rulers of "thi :
free and happy land,
And don't go round explaining things
do not understand;
But there must be something treacher0us
in the steering of the law,
When we get dose of poison out of ev-
cry breath we draw.
have talked too mnch, good preacher,
and hope you won't be vexed,
But I'm going to make a sermon, with
that white face for text;
And I'll preach it, and I'll preach it, till
set our people wild
'Gainst the heartless, reckless grasping of
the men who killed my child.
Lire is divided into three terms--that
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