Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1884-07-03
SPRING IN THE ALLEY.

She stopped and told him that the Spring was
A ring Of triumph in her fresh young voice;
For she, poor child, was in her LIES glad
And the soft sunshine made her heart re.
joice.
"wert thou not longing for the SPRING." she
said
But the pale sufferer sadly shook his head,
And gazed with sunken eyes upon her face,
Till its pure beauty filled his soul with peace,
Then smoothed her locks, and in fond en-
brace,
Clasping her slender form, he whispered:
"Cease
To sing the praises of the young Spring flow
Child of the narrow court! they are not ours.''
Der the respondent sufferer bending low,
Till her fair tresses swept his throbbing
brow,
With tender glstening eyes, and cheeks aglow
With Joy and hope, she softly told him how.
Not very far away, the golden bees
Wooed the white clusters of the hawthorn
She spoke of twttering birds, and raised her
eyes,
Bright with the glory of poetic thought.
To the dark ceiling that shut out the skies
And lowered upon her, as she vainy sought,
With words of loving sympathy, to cheer
The Pickering life that suffering made SO dear.
For oh, that life, unlovely though it seemed,
Was the dear object of her fondest love;
Volumes of witching poesy she dreamed.
Morn, noon and evening, as she bent above
His weary form, yet neither light nor bloom
Could tempt her footsteps from that dingy
room.
Oft, when she heard his hollow cough, she
In the still midnigbt-how it wrung her
heart!
Yea, she could hear it even when she slept,
often Weakened "A fpNeriSh
Beseechin2 God, in many fearful prayer,
To ease the pain that she so longed to share.
Blithelv she caroled when the morning sun
Rose DER the alley like blushing bride:
Or grave and silent, like some meekfaced
Piled she her needle by the sufferers side
And oh, il was so sweet to toll for hlm
Till her hands trembled and her eyes grew
dim!
Till from those weary hands her work would
And her dim vision could distinguish
nOught
Save the black spiders crawling on the wall
And the dead viole,s she herself had bought
With the few coppers she had stored away
From her poor scanty earnings day by day.
For when before the market-sta she stood
Her little purse ciasped tightly in her hand.
She needs mast purcha se-tor each dewy bud
Seemed like a messenger from iairyland;
And well her fine poetic fancy knew
The sheltered places where the violets grew.
And when she raised them to her eager lips
With the pure rapture of little child,
The dewdrops twinkled on their azure tips,
Till the young dreamer bent her face and
smiled
With the sweet consciousness that they would
bring
Into the meanest sum breath of Spring
Returning home her joyous footsteps fell
dixie the soft pater of the summer rain;
And oh, one weary sufferer knew it well.
And moaned a welcome from his bed OF
painl
Close TO his breast she crept, and kneeling
there,
He twined the vioiets in her sunny hair.
Charmed from his fretful mood, the ST. Tercr
laid
One thin white hand upon her worn gray
dress:
Dear child" he murmurcd. while the sun
beams played
At hide-and seek amid each wandering tress
g Withdraw the blind--let IN the rosy morn:
l, too, am grateful that the Spring is bornI"
Funny Forester, IN Chambers Journal