Page:Poems Crandall.djvu/68

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And what of fair Columbia,
  The honored land of our birth,
Does she prize the gracious gift from Heaven
  Of peace and good will upon earth?

We crowd and we trample each other,
  God's gift we have thrown away;
What fools—what base ingratitude;
  But—'tis dollars or death today.

Is there peace in the home of the drunkard?
  Sweet peace in the prison cell,
Where a man with a youthful haggard face
  Is waiting to hear death's knell?

He remembers nothing, they tell him
  He murdered his child and his wife.
We sold him the drink that made him a brute
  And now make him forfeit his life.

If the angels that sang in Judea
  To herald our Savior and King,
Are singing to night that wonderful song;
  Methinks they must weep as they sing.

Christmas 1895

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