Not By Your Fault Are You Suffering There."]

Guilt has not pressed unto its breast All who are taking this dingy unrest: Innocence often is Misery's guest; Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best. You from whom hope, but not feeling, has fled, This is your refuge from pauperhood's bed; Timorous lad with a sensitive face, You have no record of crime and disgrace; Weary old man with the snow-drifted hair, Not by your fault are you suffering there, Never a child of your cherishing nigh-- 'Tis not for sin you so drearily die. Pain, in all lands, smites with two hands-- Guilty and good may encounter the test; Misery's cord is of different strands; Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best.

Sympathy's tear, warm and sincere, Cannot but glisten while lingering near. Edge not away, sir, in horror of fear, These are your brothers--this family here! What if Misfortune had made you forlorn With her stiletto as well as her scorn? What if some fiend had been making you sure With more temptation than flesh could endure? What if you deep in the slums had been born, Cradled in villany, christened in scorn? What if your toys had been tainted with crime? What if your baby hands dabbled in slime? Judge them with ruth. Maybe, in truth, It is not they, but their luck, that is here. Fancy your growth from a sin-nurtured youth; Pity their weakness, and give them a tear.

Help them get out; help them keep out! Labor to teach them what life is about; Give them a hand unencumbered with doubt; Feed them and clothe them, but pilot them out! Mortals depraved, whatsoe'er they have been, Soonest can mend from assistance within. Warm them and feed them--they're beasts, even then; Teach them and love them--they grow into men. You who 'mid luxuries costly and grand Decorate homes with munificent hand, Use, in some measure, your exquisite arts For the improvement of minds and of hearts. Lilies must grow up from below, Where the strong rootlets are twining about; Goodness and honesty ever must flow From the heart-centres--to blossom without.

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

FEBRUARY 28, 18--.

Wind in the west; no symptoms of a thaw; The coldest, bleakest day I ever saw. And I'm housed up, with nothing much to do Except to read the papers through and through.

"Died of starvation!"--what does this all mean? Stores of provisions everywhere are seen. "Died of starvation!"--here's the place and name Right in the paper; let us blush for shame!

This city wastes what any one would call Nine hundred times enough to feed us all; And yet folks die in garret, hut, and street, Simply because there isn't enough to eat!

Oh, heavens! there runs a great big Norway rat, Sleek as a banker, and almost as fat; He daily breakfasts, dines, and sups, and thrives On what would save a pair of human lives; He rears a family with his own fat features, On food we lock up from our fellow-creatures; And human beings fall down by the way, And die for want of food, this very day!

"Frozen to death!"--the worse than useless moth May feed, this year, on bales and bales of cloth; Untouched, ten million tons of coal can lie, While God's own human beings freeze and die!

"Died of starvation!"--waves of golden wheat All summer dashed and glistened at our feet; Dull, senseless grain is stored in buildings high, And God's own human beings starve and die!

I would not rob from rich men what they earn, But I would have them sweet compassion learn; Oh, do not Pity's gentle voice defy, While God's own human beings starve and die!

* * * * *

MARCH 5, 18--.

Died of starvation!--yes, it has been done; To-day I've seen a hunger-murdered one, Who had a perfect right, it seemed to me, The mistress of a happy home to be; And yet we found her on a ragged bed, One white arm underneath a shapely head; Her long, bright hair was lying, fold on fold, Like finest threads spun from a bar of gold; Her face was chiselled after beauty's style, And want had not hewn out its witching smile; 'Twas like white marble half endowed with breath-- The face of this sweet maiden--starved to death!

Not far from where she lay, so sadly lone, Her calendar, or "diary," was thrown; They let me have it when the law had read This plaintive, girlish message from the dead. It doesn't look well among these notes to stay, Of one who feeds on blessings every day; But I will put it in here, for my heart To look at when I feel too proud and smart!

A SEWING-GIRL'S DIARY.

FEBRUARY 1, 18--.

Here--am I here? Or is it fancy, born of fear? Yes--O God, save me!--this is I, And not some wretch of whom I've read, In that bright girlhood, when the sky Each night strewed star-dust o'er my head; When each morn meant a gala-day, And all my little world was gay. I had not felt the touch of Care; I'd heard of something called Despair, But knew it only by its name. (How far it seemed!--how soon it came!) Yes, all the bright years hurried by; Sorrow was near, and--this is I!

Is't the same girl that stood, one night, There in the wide hall's thrilling light, With all the costly robes astir That love and pride had bought for her? How the great crowd, 'mid their kind din, Gazed with gaunt eyes and drank me in! And then they hushed at each low word, So Death himself might have been heard, To hear me mournfully rehearse The tender Hood's pathetic verse About the woman who, half dead, Stitched her frail life in every thread. How little then I knew the need! Yet for my own sex I did plead, And my heart crept on each word's track Till soft sobs from the crowd came back.