Bob
SINGER of songs of the hills—
Dreamer, by waters unstirred,
Back in a valley of rills,
Home of the leaf and the bird!—
Read in this fall of the year
Just the compassionate phrase,
Faded with traces of tear,
Written in far-away days:
“Gone is the light of my lap
(Lord, at Thy bidding I bow),
Here is my little one’s cap,
He has no need of it now,
Give it to somebody’s boy—
Somebody’s darling”—she wrote.
Touching was Bob in his joy—
Bob without boots or a coat.
Only a cap; but it gave
Capless and comfortless one
Happiness, bright as the brave,
Beautiful light of the sun.
Soft may the sanctified sod
Rest on the father who led
Bob from the gutter, unshod—
Covered his cold little head!
Bob from the foot to the crown
Measured a yard, and no more—
Baby alone in the town,
Homeless, and hungry, and sore—
Child that was never a child,
Hiding away from the rain,
Draggled and dirty and wild,
Down in a pipe of the drain.
Poor little beggar was Bob—
Couldn’t afford to be sick,
Getting a penny a job,
Sometimes a curse and a kick.
Father was killed by the drink;
Mother was driven to shame;
Bob couldn’t manage to think—
He had forgotten their name.
God was in heaven above,
Flowers illumined the ground,
Women of infinite love
Lived in the palaces round—
Saints with the character sweet
Found in the fathers of old,
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Kendall
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