THE LOSS OF THE EMIGRANTS.[1]
FOR months and years, with penury and want
And heart-sore envy did they dare to cope;
And mite by mite was saved from earnings scant,
To buy, some future day, the God-sent hope.
They trod the crowded streets of hoary towns,
Or tilled from year to year the wearied fields,
And in the shadow of the golden crowns
They gasped for sunshine and the health it yields.
They turned from homes all cheerless, child and man,
With kindly feelings only for the soil.
And for the kindred faces, pinched and wan.
That prayed, and stayed, unwilling, at their toil
They lifted up their faces to the Lord,
And read His answer in the westering sun
That called them ever as a shining word,
And beckoned seaward as the rivers run.
- ↑ The steamer Atlantic was wrecked near Halifax, N.S., April 1st, 1873, and 560 lives lost.
