The age-herald., 1901-05-13
A STREET URCHIN.
RY A. LArApY.

The lengtnening shadows fall upon the street,
 The busy hum of life begins to lul. Less frequent the falls of human feet,
 The thoroughfares grow lonesome now ana oull Anon some lordy carriage rumbies past,
 Again, some hired hanson hurrtes on; And now some merchant lingering to the last
 Is trending homeward from his labors done. And there before me strolIs a little child,
 Whose listless air bespeaks vacant mind, Whose grmy face, whose hair unkempt and wild
 Betokens little care from humankind Sans shoes, hat. coat, and thinly clad
 He shuf1es onward. staring as he goes, The veriest picture of homeless lad,
 ,gho where he's going, neither cares nor knows For him no hansoms through the city roll,
 No cabby tries to catch his listless eye, Small do the passers mark the little soul.
 Scarce is he noted as he shambles by. Save that some kind. some gentle. generous one,
 The passing tribute of coin may give, Thinking no further of the deed thus done.
 Than that the urchin may deserve to live Small does he weigh the dignity and worth
 Of him to whom the tribute he has given Small does he think that that poor lump of earth
 Is of the favored. of the care of heaven. Yet is that urchin of the earliest dawn
 When humankind first trod this thoughtess earth His percentage through and sire being drawn
 Back through the ages Tram mans earliest birth And of the charm no link has failed the test,
 To hold its fellows in mysterious grasp, This last one VOucn1nB tO uS all tn0 IeSt,
 The first giving promise of this last The line of Caesars long since broke in twain
 Of heavens favor less of proof can bear Than this poor urchin whose weak form proclaims
 That through the ages heaven has had his care. Through beings nood through all that Father Time' Ere bred of war, disease and accident Has some divinity preserved the line
 Of which this urchin Is an emanant No loving nurse will fondle him to sleep,
 Mo rft1 nnofha m Into squalid novel must he creep
 Or in some door way md his lonely rest Yet in that urchin is a god-made form. spark rekinded from the earliest one.
 No nearer kin to God can man aspire. The stagnant pool which doth offend the sight,
 And or whose surface is mantle spread. Reflects as much the glorious starry night
 AS that whose purity reveals its bed What if his hand no rod of empire Il sway.
 Or wake to ecstacy living lyreH They who have empires ruled in ashes lay.
 While in this urchin burns living ire Some few computed centuries we ken.
 Some measured miles, some acres trodden OCT; Such is the limit ot the wisest men.
 They know this much but never can know more Out on the sentiment that moans the clod
 Long since committed to it's mother dust, The living the witnesses of tod
 Who should command our reverance and our trusl Dead monuments Of former deader days
 Reveal but glimmerings of an earlier time Which shall into oblivion pass away,
 Nor leave a vestige of their worth behind This lad whose ray of glory's so dim,
 This humble ambng straddling little clod Is to the wise the equal of king.
 living temple of the living God. And in that day which must be born of time.
 Brightest in glories gathered from the past. This urchin's progeny may end the line
 Which having the First, shall see the last ham, May Il. 1901