POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2211, 28 March 1881, Page 3

POETRY.

BILLY’S ROSE. [The “Referee.”] Billy’s dead and gone to glory —so is Billy’s sister Nell; There’s a tale I know about them, were I poet I would tell j Soft it comes, With perfume laden, like a breath of country air, Wafted down the filthy alley, bringing fragrant odours there. In that vile and filthy alley, long ago, one winter’s day, Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient Billy lay; _ While busido him sat his sister, in the garret’s dismal gloom, Cheering with her gentle presence, Billy’s pathway to the tomb. Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child, Till her eyes lost half their anguish, and her worn wan features smiled ; Tales herself had heard haphazard, caught amici the Babel roar, Lisped about by tiny gossips playing at their mother’s door. Then she felt hie wasted fingers tighten feebly os she told How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold, Where, when all the pain was over—where, when all the tears were shed He would bo a white frocked angel, with a gold thing on bis head. Then she told some garbled story of a kindeyed Saviour’s love, How he’d built for little children great big playgrounds up above, Where they sang and played at hopscotch and at horses all the day. And whore beadles and policemen never frightened them away. This was Nell’s ideas of Heaven—just a bit

of what she’d heard. With a little bit invented, and a little bit in-

ferred ; But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand. For ho closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land. "Yes,” he whispered, “I can see it—lean see it, Sister Nell; Oh, the children look so happy, and they’re all so strong and well; I can see them there with Jesus—He is playing with them too ! Let us run away and join them, is there room for mo and you ? She was eight, this little maiden, and her life

had all been spent In the garret and the alley, where they starved

to pay the rent; Where a drunken’s father’s curses and a

drunken mother’s blows Drove her forth into the gutter from the day’s

dawn to its close. But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy, “ You must die, before you’re able all these blessings to enjoy. You must die,” she whispered, “ Billy, and I

am not even ill, But I'll come to you, dear brother—yes, I promise that I will.

“ You are dying, little brother, you are dying oh, so fast! I heard father say to mother that he knew you eeuldn’t last, They will put you in a coffin, then you'll wake and be up there While I’m left alone to suffer, in this garret

bleak and bare.” “ Yes, I know it," answered Billy. “Ah, but sister I don’t mind, Gentle Jesus will not beat mo: He's not cruel or unkind, But I can’t help thinking, Nelly, I should like to take away, Something, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day. “ In the summer you remember how the Mia-

sion took us out To the great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about, And the van that took us halted by a sweet white patch of land, Where the fine red blossoms grow, dear, half as big as mother’s hand. Nell, I asked the good kind teacher, what they call such flowers as those And he told me, I remember, that the pretty

name was rose, I have never seen them since, dear—how I wish that I had one! Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I’m up beyond the sun. Not a word said little Nelly ; but at night when Billy slept, On she flung her scanty garments, and then down the stairs she crept; Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn, Running on and running ever tiH the night had changed to dawn.

When the foggy sun had risen, and tho mist had cleared away, All around her, wrapp’d in snowdrift, there the open country lay ! She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet, But there came no flowery gardens, her keen hungry eyes to greet.

She had traced the road by asking—sho had learnt tho way to go j She had found tho famous meadow ; it was wrapped in cruel snow ; Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant blade. Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down aid prayed. With her eyes upcast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground, And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found. Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim, ,And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to rack her every limb.

“Oh, a rose!” she moaned, “good Jesusjust a rose to take to Bill!” And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the bill, And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet; As she paused she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly’s feet.

Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret. And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet; But the poor halt-blinded Nelly thought it fallen from the skies. And she murmured, “ Thank you. Saviour 1” as she clasped the dainty priz.. * * * * * Lo ! that night from out the alley did a child’s soul pass away ; From dirt and sin and misery to where God’s children play. Lo ! that night a wild fierce snowstorm burst in fury o’er the land. And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand. Billy’s dead and gone to glory—so is Billy’s sister Nell; Am I bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell ? That the children met in Heaven, after all their earthly woes, And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, '• Billy, hero’s your rose.”