-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850l

IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

EMMIE

OUR doctor had called in another, I never had seen him before,

But he sent a chill to my heart when I saw him come in at

the door,

Fresh from the surgery-schools of France and of other lands

Harsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big merciless hands! Wonderful cures he had done, O yes, but they said too of him He was happier using the knife than in trying to save the

limb,

And that I can well believe, for he looked so coarse and so

red,

I could think he was one of those who would break their

jests on the dead,

And mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawned at his knee

Drenched with the hellish oorali-that ever such things should be!

Here was a boy-I am sure that some of our children would die

But for the voice of love, and the smile, and the comforting

eye

Here was a boy in the ward, every bone seemed out of its

place-

Caught in a mill and crushed-it was all but a hopeless case:

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293

And he handled him gently enough; but his voice and his face were not kind,

And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen it and made up his mind,

And he said to me roughly "The lad will need little more of your care."

"All the more need," I told him, "to seek the Lord Jesus

in prayer;

They are all His children here, and I pray for them all as my own:"

But he turned to me, "Ay, good woman, can prayer set a broken bone?"

Then he muttered half to himself, but I know that I heard

him say,

"All very well-but the good Lord Jesus has had his day.",

Had? has it come? It has only dawned. It will come by and by.

O, how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the world were a lie?

How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome smells of disease

But that He said "Ye do it to me, when ye do it to these'

So he went. And we passed to this ward where the younger children are laid:

Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling, our meek little maid;

Empty you see just now! We have lost her who loved her

so much

Patient of pain though as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch;

Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to tears,

Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a child of

her years

ཀ」 ; }

Nay you remember our Emmie; you used to send her the

flowers;

How she would smile at 'em, play with 'em, talk to 'em hours after hours!

They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are revealed

Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field;

Flowers to these "spirits in prison" are all they can know of the spring,

They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an angel's wing;

And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crossed on her breast

Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we thought her

at rest,

Quietly sleeping-so quiet, our doctor said, "Poor little dear,

Nurse, I must do it to-morrow; she'll never live through it, I fear."

I walked with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair,

Then I returned to the ward; the child didn't see I was there.

Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and so vexed! Emmie had heard him. Softly she called from her cot to the next,

"He says I shall never live through it; O Annie, what shall I do?"

Annie considered. "If I," said the wise little Annie, "was

you,

I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie,

you see,

It's all in the picture there: 'Little children should come to

Me.'"

(Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please

Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about His knees.)

"Yes, and I will," said Emmie, "but then if I call to the

Lord,

How should He know that it's me? such a lot of beds in the

ward?"

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295

That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she considered and

said:

"Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave 'em outside on the bed

The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it Him plain,

It's the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane."

I had sat three nights by the child-I could not watch her for four

My brain had begun to reel-I felt I could do it no

more.

That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it never

would pass.

There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass,

And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tossed

about,

The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without;

My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful

knife

And fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would escape with her life;

Then in the gray of the morning it seemed she stood by me and smiled,

And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see the child.

He had brought his ghastly tools: we believed her asleep again

Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counter

pane;

Say that His day is done! Ah, why should we care what they say?

The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had

passed away.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

"IF I WERE DEAD"

"If I were dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child!" The dear lips quivered as they spake,

And the tears brake

From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.
Poor Child, poor Child!

I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.

It is not true that Love will do no wrong.

Poor Child!

And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,

How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,

And of those words your full avengers make?
Poor Child, poor Child!

And now, unless it be

That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,

O God, have Thou no mercy upon me!

Poor Child!

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

THE TOYS

My little Son, who looked from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him, and dismissed

With hard words and unkissed,

-His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,

But found him slumbering deep,

With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet

From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-veined stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach,