Poem by Julia Ward Howe

Limitations of Benevolence

    "The beggar boy is none of mine,"
      The reverend doctor strangely said;
    "I do not walk the streets to pour
      Chance benedictions on his head.

    "And heaven I thank who made me so.
      That toying with my own dear child,
    I think not on _his_ shivering limbs,
      _His_ manners vagabond and wild."

    Good friend, unsay that graceless word!
      I am a mother crowned with joy,
    And yet I feel a bosom pang
      To pass the little starveling boy.

    His aching flesh, his fevered eyes
      His piteous stomach, craving meat;
    His features, nipt of tenderness,
      And most, his little frozen feet.

    Oft, by my fireside's ruddy glow,
      I think, how in some noisome den,
    Bred up with curses and with blows,
      He lives unblest of gods or men.

    I cannot snatch him from his fate,
      The tribute of my doubting mind
    Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill,
      That skirts the ways of humankind.

    But, as my heart's desire would leap
      To help him, recognized of none,
    I thank the God who left him this,
      For many a precious right foregone.

    My mother, whom I scarcely knew,
      Bequeathed this bond of love to me;
    The heart parental thrills for all
      The children of humanity.

1. Tribute to Oliver Wendell Holmes
2. Mother Mind
3. Our Orders
4. Coquette et Froide
5. The Bee's Song

Print

1129 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version