Search -
Pictures in print, being recollections in rhyme and pencillings in prose
Pictures in print being recollections in rhyme and pencillings in prose Author:John Gibson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ORPHAN CHILD. Oh! weary is the lot and wild Of little helpless orphan child— Wandering, cold and hungry, 'mong The gay and well-fed idle throng; To bitter... more » poortith ever near, Tasting little of earth's good cheer, Lone thoughts for ever fill his brain— His life one ceaseless round of pain: Ah, little know the rich and great Of this poor pilgrim-pauper's fate. Or foundling child, in poor man's cot, Alike by kin and friends forgot; A living mother dead to shame— A mother—mockery of the name— He knows full well he must have got, But when or where he knoweth not; His birthday no one singleth out, Like pedigree, 't is sealed by doubt; And though to sense fast wearing old, His natal hour Time's tongue ne'er told. 'Mong playmates, outcast and forlorn, He oft repents him he M been born; And lonely stands the livelong day, While jocund youth around him play: Light is the heart—the footstep free— Of all around, poor boy, but thee. As stranger, on thy native soil, In after years foredoomed to toil, Uncheered by Hope's celestial ray, So dark thy morn as dark thy day; Greeted by few congenial friends, To thee bright earth no comfort lends, But such as thou mayst pluck the while By bitter cares and slavish toil. O! would the wealthy sons of earth, When sportive round the ring of mirth, With fairy foot they freely bound To music's soft enchanting sound,— Would such but pause and mark the lot Of those by wealth and rank forgot, They VI pity more the hand that toiled, And succour oft the orphan child. THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP. One man in his time plays man; parts. Shakspxabx. Men are workmen all. Each one, from the peer to the peasant, has something to do, something to study, something to execute, in the World's Workshop. Idleness—absolute inactivity—is foreign to the na...« less