208
SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
For he led the sacred singing in an unctuous, nasal tone,
And he looked as if the sermon and the Scriptures were his own.
But one day the white-haired preacher spoke of how God's justice fell
Soon or late with awful sureness on the man whose heart could tell
Of a wrong done to the widow or the orphan, and he said
That such wrongs were ever living, though the injured ones were dead.
And old Sculpin's heart was writhing, though his heavy eyes were closed,—
For, despite his solemn sanctity, at sermon times he dozed;
But his half-awakened senses heard the preacher speak of death
And of wrongs done unto orphans, and he dreamed with wheezing breath
