Читать книгу Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love - Elizabeth Ryder Wheaton - Страница 13

Oh, those wond'rous gloomy walls!

What a chill their shadow calls

To creep and tingle through our veins!

Moving all our soul contains

Of pity for the woes within—

Those who move within this pall,

Those who bear a load of sin,

In the shadow of that wall.

Yes, you think their lot is hard;

So do all you can t'retard

Their sad downward course in time,

And save them from a greater crime.

But pause and come with me to view

Various pictures in the hall

Of the innocent and true,

In the shadow of this wall.

There's a mother, good and true,

With a face of palest hue;

Eyes are dimmed and faint to-day,

With their brightness washed away

By the tears she's nightly shed;

Yet she does not fail to call

Blessings on her dear boy's head,

In the shadow of the wall.

There's a father, too, bowed o'er

With age, and his head is hoar.

Ah! it surely broke his heart

With his honored name to part.

Now instead of his boy's arm,

A cane-stalk keeps him from a fall,

As he walks about his farm,

In the shadow of the wall.

There's a wife, too, in the gloom,

Yet within her heart there's room

For the one whose name she bears;

She will share e'en now his cares.

Vows were said to God above,

And, tho' friends forget to call,

She will keep her vow of love,

In the shadow of the wall.

There are children, bright and gay,

Now at school and now at play;

Why do playmates push them off,

Only at their tears to scoff?

Can innocence, then, guilty be?

Why are they shunned, each one and all?

Ah! these children e'en we see,

In the shadow of the wall.

And O, for shame! to scorn some one

For the deed another's done;

For their road is hard at best;

They should never once have guessed,

From the things you do and say,

That you once those facts recall—

How they're living day by day

In the shadow of the wall.

But a word we'd say for him

Who inhabits those walls dim:

Shun him not; help if you can—

Let him try to be a man.

When he's paid now for his sin,

Let not scorn bring other falls,

Just because he once has been

In the shadow of the walls.

He has yet a heart, tho' scarred;

He has yet a soul, tho' marred;

And he has to live and try

Till his time shall come to die.

Sweet Charity, that suffereth long,

Let us now as guard install.

She will lead him from the wrong—

From the shadow of the wall.

We would not pet the sin and crime;

Let reproof fall in its time.

But reproof should have an end,

When the sinner tries to mend!

Give him every chance you can—

Lend a helping hand to all;

Lead the woman or the man

From the shadow of the wall.