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.