Original Poetry.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2048, 27 November 1869, Page 2

Original Poetry.

OUT OF EVIL THERE COMETH GOOD. Oh father you tell me the children of sin Are doomed to a fathomless pit evermore. Where darkness and misery e’er reigns within And the soul like a giant still welters in gore. When the sun shines at morn so resplendent and bright, Illuming each spot with its rays so divine, I think of those children who ne’er saw the light Of Heavenly precepts that e’er have been mine. And pondering I think of some poor hapless boy, Cradled in crime from youth’s early dawn, Who ne’er in this "life knew an innocent joy, And better by far had never been bom. Taught by his father and mother to steal, Punished by them when he stole not well, This was the only truth’s light to reveal His lesson of life—his punishment tell. Then I see the dark scaffold stand out in the light. To end all life’s woes of this hapless one. And my heart sinks within with woe and affright, To think our dear Father will doom his own son. Oh no ! cried the father in life’s latest hour, If repentant the poor erring one shall be blest, For the Son on the cross will prove Heaven’s power To take the poor sinful soul to his breast. But how if this man in wickedness taught, Sees not the light in the last moment shown, Refuses this lesson by the scaffold now taught, Deeming his death should his er. ors atone. Oh father, the average life upon earth, Deducting our sleep, is but sixteen years ; Oh now if I sinned from my moment of birth, And made every- day a lifetime of tears, Then tell me, dear father, if you had the power, To hurl my poor soul to death evermore, Oh would you not pardon in life’s latest hour, And shut not for ever on me Heaven’s door ? Then oh tell me not that our Father above Will not be as kind as my father on earth : For he is the Father of mercy and love, And life is a lesson from tire moment of birth. As virtue unaided by vice must he taught, So this boy tells a lesson so soon understood, That the precepts of life are with wisdom all fraught, “And out of all evil there still cometh good.” James Simmonos. Provincial Hotel, Dunedin.