The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-12-14
BILLY's ROSE.


! Soft it comes, with perfume laden, like
breath of country air
/ Wafted down the filthy alley, bringing
| fragrant doors there
In that vile and filthy alley, long ago
one winters day,
Dying quick of want and fever. hapless,
patient Billy lay,
| While beside him sat his sister, in the
garretS dismal gloom,
Cheering with her gentle presence Billy's
pathway TO the tomb
Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell
the dying child.
Till his eyes lost half their anguish and
his worn. wan features smiled
Tales herself had heard hap-hazard,
caught amid the Babel roar,
Asped about by tiny gossps playing
round their mothers door.
Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten
feebly as she told
How beyond this dismal alley lay land
of shining gold.
Where. when all the pain was over
where. when all the tears were
He would be white-frocked angel, with
gold thing on his head
Then she told some garbled story of a
kid-eyed Savior's love,
How He's built for little children great
big Fairgrounds up above,
! Where they sang and played at hop
! scotch and at horses all the day.
/ And where beadles and policemen never
frightened them away
This was NelPs idea of Heaven-iust
bit of what she'd heard.
/ With little bit invented, and little bit
inferred.
But brother lay and listened, and he
seemed to understand.
For he closed his eyes and murmured he
could see the Promised Land.
eyes" he whispered ct can see if ran
see ii. sister Nell:
Oh. the children look so happy. and
they're all so strong and well:
1 can see them there with Jesus-He is
playing with them, tool
Let us run away and join them, if there's
room for me and you
She was eight, this little maiden, and her
life had all been spent
In the garnet and the alley, where they
starved to pay the rent;
Where drunken fathers curses and a
drunken mothers blows
Drove her forth into the gutter from the
days dawn to its close.
But she knew enough this outcast, just
to tell the sinking boy,
''You must die before you're able al
these blessings to enjoy.
You must die" she whispered. Billy
and l am not even i'll;
But I'll come to you, dear brother-yes.
l promise that / will.
"You are dying. little brother-you are
dying. oh, so fast;
I heard father say to mother that he
knew you couldn't last.
They will put you in a coffin, then you'll
wake and be up there,
While I'm left alone to suffer in this gar
ret bleak and bare
yes, I know it, answered Billy. "Ah.
but, sister, l don't mind.
Gentle Jesus viii not beat me; he's not
cruel or unkind.
But can't help thinking, Nelly, I should
Ike TO take away
Something. sister. that you gave me,
might look at every day.
In summer you remember how the
mission took us out
To a great green lovely meadow, where
we played and ran about,
And the van that took us halted by
sweet bright patch of land,
Where the fine red blossoms grew, DEAR
half as big as mothers hand.
Nell. 1 asked the good kind teacher
what they called such flowers as
And he told me. I remember. that the
pretty name was rose.
l have never seen them since, dear-how
I wish that l had one
Just 10 keep and think of you. Nell when
I'm up beyond the sun
Not word said little Nelly: but at night.
when Billy slept.
On she flung her scanty garments and
then down the stairs she crept-
Through the silent streets of London
she ran nimbly as d fawn,
Running on and running over till the
night had changed to dawn.
When the foggy sun had risen, and the
mist had cleared away,
All around her, wrapped in snowdrift
there the open country lay.
She was tired. her limbs were frozen, and
she roads had cut her feet.
But there came no fiowery gardens her
poor fearful eyes 10 greet
She had traced The road by asking-she
lad learnt the way TO go:
She had found the famous meadow-it
was wrapped in cruel snow.
Not huttercuD or daisy, not single
verdant blade
Showed It's head above its prison. Then
she knelt her down and prayed.
With her eyes upcast to heaven, down
she sank upon the ground.
And she prayed TO God to tell her where
the roses might be found.
Then the cold blast numbed her senses,
and her sight grew strangely dim;
And sudden. awful tremor seemed TO
seize her every limb
"Oh, a rose" she murmured. good Je-
sus-just rose TO take to Bill!
And as she prayed a chariot came thun-
derins down the hill;
And a lady sat there. toying with red
rose, rare and sweet:
As she passed she llung ii from her, and
it fell at Nellys feet
JEST a word her lord had spoken caused
her ladyship to fret,
And the rose had been his present, so
she flung il. in a pet.
But the poor half-blinded Nelly thought
& fallen from the skies,
And she murmured. Thank you, Jesus,
as she clasped the dainty prize.
Lo that night from out the alley did a
childs soul pass away,
From the dirt and sin and misery to
where Gods children play.
Lo that night a wild, fierce snow storm
burst in fury Ger the land.
And at morn they found Nell frozen,
with the red rose in her hand.
Bnly's dead and gone TO glory-so is
Binys sister Nell:
Am | bold TO say this happened in the
land where angels dwell
That the children met in heaven. after
all their earthly woes,
And that Nelly kissed her brother. and
said, BILLY, here's your rose2"
George r. Simms. "Dagonet Ballads"
ChiIdren's Jackets.
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