Classic Poem

A STORY OF NEW ORLEANS .

H E sat on the humble door-step;
His hand, which held a cup,
Looked like a crazy jackknife
With long blades half closed up.
His thin limbs, all distorted,
Were tangled in a gown,
And from his knotted shoulders
A pinafore hung down.

Light-hearted, laughing children
Were playing in the street,
And mock-birds in the live-oaks
Made music wild and sweet.
He tried to join their chorus,
But from his palsied tongue
Came only wordless discord,
As if by witches sung.

The boys played ball and hop-scotch;
They flew the paper kite,
And hallooed as its white wings
Grew dark upon their sight.
All, all but poor Hines, shouted;
Their fun was not for him,
For strange and ruthless fetters
Enchained him mind and limb.

Through all his childish summers
Beneath the cottage-eaves
Each morn his mother placed him,
Where, shimmering through the leaves,
The sunshine like an angel
Came down and kissed his head,
And vestal orange-blossoms
Their incense round him shed.

He laughed to see the sunshine,
He nodded to the trees;
But most of all, young children
His idiot heart could please.
His thin blood, as he watched them,
Would strangely flush his cheek,
And strangely would his sealed lips
Essay their joy to speak.

Now whining he pursued them,
With sad and witless stare,
As down the green lane flying
Their laughter filled the air;
When, suddenly, they halted —
" Poor Hines! " they said, and then
Back to the vine-clad cottage
They quickly came again.

One bade the boy good-morrow;
Another smoothed his hair;
Another filled with water
The cup he offered there;
While one bright, blue-eyed urchin
Stepped through the open door
And brought him out a toy-whip
He could not reach before.

Then to their sports returning,
They frolicked glad and free,
And poor Hines cracked his toy-whip
And chattered in his glee;
While through the bowery lattice
The morning sea-breeze sung,
And golden flecks of sunlight
Lay all the leaves among.

O sweet, unconscious teachers!
Ye prove that all of heaven
From our strange, sinful natures
Has not been darkly riven;
And that while little children
Are left below the skies,
We may be safely guided
To our lost Paradise.