Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-04-20
THAT SWAMP OF DEATH.


Yes, it's straight and true, good preacher,
every word that you have said;
Do not think these tears unmanly-theyr'e the
first that have shed.
But they kind of pressed and pounded on my
aching heart and brain,
And they would not be let go of, and they gave
me extra pain.
and rags and sleep
And l hardly know the object of the life we
slave to keep;
But know when days are CHEEKY, or my heart
is made of lead,
| know sorrow when | see it--and know my
child is dead.
No, she isn't much to look at, just plainish
bit of clay,
OF the sort of perished children you are seeing
every day;
And how she could break a life up, you'd be
slow to understand,
But she held mine, Mr.. Preacher, in that little
withered hand.
am just a laboring man, sir, of the kind that
digs and delves,
But I've learned that human nature cannot
stay in by themselves;
They will wander out for something, be it
good or bad,
And my heart with hers had settled, and the
girl was all / 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, Mr.. Preacher, and it's maybe as
you've said,
God loves children while their living, and
adopts them when their dead.
| But my brain won't quit contrving, do the
very best l can,
That twas not Gods mercy took her, but the
selfshness of man.
Why she lay here, faint and gasping, moaning
for bit of air,
| Chokcd and strangled by the foul breath from
the chmney's over there;
For it climbed through every window and il
crept beneath the door,
And l tried to bar against it, but she only
choked the more.
She would lie here with the old look that pooi
children somehow get;
She had learned to use her patience and she die
not cry or fret;
But would light her pale, pinched face up, full
ofearly grief and care,
And would whisper, ~ am dying for littl,
breath of air."
If she'd gone out with the zephyrs. 'twouldn'
have seemed so hard to me-
Or among the cool fresh breezes that COM
rushing from the sea;
But it's nothing less than murder when m!
darling's every breath
Chokes and strangles with the poison iron
that cursed swamp of death.
Oh, tits not enough that such men own tn
ground on which we tread,
And the shelter that we crouch in, and tn
tools that earn our bread;
They must put their blotted mortgage on tn
air and on the sky,
And shut out little heaven, till our children
pine and die
Yes we wear the cheapest clothing, and ou
meals are scant and brief,
And perhaps those fellows fancy there's
cheaper grade of grief;
But the people all around here, losing children
| IrlenuS anu IidlcS,
Can inform them that afliiction hasn't an,
undertakes
oh, the air is pure and wholesome where som
babies grow and rest,
And they trim 'em out with ribbons, and the
feed 'em with the best;
But the love they gets an insult to the God o
love on high.
If to earn those children's living some one else
child must die.
I'm no grumbler at the rulers of this free an,
happy land"
} And ! don't go round explaining things l d.
not understand,
But there must be something treacherous il
the steering of the law
When we get dose of poison out of ever!
breath we draw.
/ have talked to much, good preacher, and
hope you won't be vexed,
But I'm going to make a sermon, with tina
white face for text;
And III preach it, and I'll preach it, till 1 Sc
our people wild
'Gainst the heartless, reckless grasping of the
men who killed my child.
| VIII Carleton in Harpers Weekly.