Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two. Various

For the spending was not losing, Tho' the purchase were but small; It has perished with the using. We have had it—that is all! All the gold we leave behind us, When we turn to dust again, Tho' our avarice may blind us, We have gathered quite in vain; Since we neither can direct it, By the winds of fortune tost, Nor in other worlds expect it; What we hoarded we have lost. But each merciful oblation— Seed of pity wisely sown, What we gave in self-negation, We may safely call our own; For the treasure freely given Is the treasure that we hoard, Since the angels keep in heaven, What is lent unto the Lord. John G. Saxe.

The Polish Boy

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Whence come those shrieks so wild and shrill,

That cut, like blades of steel, the air,

Causing the creeping blood to chill

With the sharp cadence of despair?

Again they come, as if a heart

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,

And every string had voice apart

To utter its peculiar woe.

Whence came they? From yon temple, where

An altar, raised for private prayer,

Now forms the warrior's marble bed

Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.

The dim funereal tapers throw

A holy luster o'er his brow,

And burnish with their rays of light

The mass of curls that gather bright

Above the haughty brow and eye

Of a young boy that's kneeling by.

What hand is that, whose icy press

Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,

But meets no answering caress?

No thrilling fingers seek its clasp.

It is the hand of her whose cry

Rang wildly, late, upon the air,

When the dead warrior met her eye

Outstretched upon the altar there.

With pallid lip and stony brow

She murmurs forth her anguish now.

But hark! the tramp of heavy feet

Is heard along the bloody street;

Nearer and nearer yet they come,

With clanking arms and noiseless drum.

Now whispered curses, low and deep,

Around the holy temple creep;

The gate is burst; a ruffian band

Rush in, and savagely demand,

With brutal voice and oath profane,

The startled boy for exile's chain.

The mother sprang with gesture wild,

And to her bosom clasped her child;

Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,

Shouted with fearful energy,

"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread

Too near the body of my dead;

Nor touch the living boy; I stand

Between him and your lawless band.

Take me, and bind these arms—these hands—

With Russia's heaviest iron bands,

And drag me to Siberia's wild

To perish, if 'twill save my child!"

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,

Tearing the pale boy from her side,

And in his ruffian grasp he bore

His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one!