It is this spirit which makes poverty the best servant
to the ideal of human nature. I am content with this type, and will
only quote, in addition, a ballad I found in a foreign periodical,
translated from Chamisso, and which forcibly recalled my own laundress
as an equally admirable sample of the same class, the Ideal Poor,
which we need for our consolation, so long as there must be real
poverty.
"THE OLD WASHERWOMAN.
"Among yon lines her hands have laden,
A laundress with white hair appears,
Alert as many a youthful maiden,
Spite of her five-and-seventy years;
Bravely she won those white hairs, still
Eating the bread hard toll obtained her,
And laboring truly to fulfil
The duties to which God ordained her.
"Once she was young and full of gladness,
She loved and hoped,--was wooed and won;
Then came the matron's cares,--the sadness
No loving heart on earth may shun.
Three babes she bore her mate; she prayed
Beside his sick-bed,--he was taken;
She saw him in the church-yard laid,
Yet kept her faith and hope unshaken.
"The task her little ones of feeding
She met unfaltering from that hour;
She taught them thrift and honest breeding,
Her virtues were their worldly dower.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370