Are born for us some good to gain,

And if we rear them just and right,

They’ll seek the day instead of night.

Long in the harvest field they’ll work—

Brave laborers that do not shirk,

And they will reap just what we sow,

As written you will find below.

I sent them forth into the world,

Some thoughts that long my heart impearled.

Their countenance was of a light

That beamed upon me through the night.

The features were like mine, perchance,

With part of heaven hid in the glance;

And the apparel that they wore

My fingers long had labored o’er.

A vine ran through the tunic’s hem

That wilted not though broke the stem,

And all the undergarments showed

The time and care on them bestowed.

Some of the moonbeams took a place

Within the frill about the face;

And, stars that bright as Lyra glowed,

The overdress and mantle showed.

The sandals that encased the feet

Were fashioned for a journey fleet,

And pinions, like a sail unfurled,

I saw outspread before the world,

With promises to come again

And glorify the parent pen.

I tore apart the silken skein

And let them drift from out my brain.

Where are they tarrying to-night?

Some beckon me across the seas,

Are favored by a foreign breeze,

Are traveling where I can not go,

Are learning what I ne’er shall know,

Are praised, perhaps, with offered funds,

While with them glad the newsboy runs;

Are welcomed in some palace home,

And ne’er allowed henceforth to roam.

The one that I had loved the best

A journey took into the West,

And by a friend it chanced to meet

Sent home a prairie flower sweet.

Two stronger ones, the North that sought,

Some words of love back home have brought;

They brighten up the lonesome hearth,

And praise the pen that gave them birth.

And one crept down in Cupid’s coat

To read a dainty perfumed note,

And afterward came back to tell

How sweetly rang the wedding bell.

Another, with as brave a face,

Had with a rival run a race;

It did its best, to gain had tried,

But came back home, alas! and died.

The tenderest one, perhaps, of all,

Upon a critic chanced to call;

He hooted at the homespun gown,

And bent his bitter, blackest frown

Upon the waif, and read its fate

Where winter winds could congregate.

I thought I heard its funeral bell,

But where the grave is I’ll not tell.

I do not know the others’ fate,

A pauper’s grave may them await.

The fabric that my hands embossed,

While Fancy figured high the cost,

May trail, to-night, some filthy street

Where sin and shame together meet,

And the loved strains from my heart’s lyre

Be sung around an outcast’s fire.

They may attain a higher sphere,

Where flows the penitential tear,

And point the wanderers they find

Upon the paths that heavenward wind.

God grant their mission may be such!

That all sad hearts they’ll lightly touch,

And spread upon the ugly wound

A balm to make them whole and sound.