Northern cities were there,

Nursing the sick with the tenderest care,

Whose kindred had fled to less dangerous lands,

Leaving the dying to strangers’ hands.

Page 52.

While the two stood quiet beside the bed

Of a patient sufferer, Charity said:

“Who hath sent these strangers here,

These dying men to soothe and cheer?

To do what mortal skill may do

To lighten their burdens of grief and woe;

To shrive these dying souls of blame,

To bid them hope in Heaven above.

Who hath sent these in my dear name

To do this holiest work of love?

Hath the treasure here given been paid by those

Whose ‘wrongs’ are so earnestly plead by you?

Or hath it been done by their ‘natural foes,’

The wealthy, the rich, the opulent few

Of Madison Square and the Fifth Avenue?”

During this lengthy interrogation

The Spirit had been pretending to doze,

But he waked himself up at the peroration,

And most ungallantly turned up his nose,

And turned on his heel, and turned him away,—

Sulkily saying, he’d Nothing to Say.

Dear Readers, I’ll ask one question of you—

Don’t you think it may possibly chance to be true,

That Charity, really, not merely in fables,

May apparel herself in satins and sables,

And costliest ribbons, and fragilest laces,

Like the daintiest beauties of Madison Square,

And may take up a home in the loftiest places,

With those who’ve, satirically, Nothing to Wear?

And in that blissful realm above,

Where the poor and the rich meet in meekness and love:

Where the works of each heart are unveiled to the light,

And Humbug and Cant yield to Truth and to Right—

Where the trickster lays off his mask of deceit,

And the cloak of the hypocrite drops to his feet,

And Honor is given, where Honor is due—

We may see that some from the Fifth Avenue,

Most nobly will speak in that great reckoning day,

While their earthly detractors have Nothing to Say.

Finis.

Transcriber’s Note: Minor punctuation errors have been repaired. Spelling was left as found.