1 C1VEA LIFT T0 OTHER >I-»* ■ * ■ m ■ ft* 'M m-mtmm »— ■ » •» -» p - ***% W * , ".* , *i < "«*.- «fiMg BY P.L.MCKINNIE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. TP %-«-** — Chap.--- Copyright Ko Siieli--,-- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Give a Lift to Mortals AND OTHER POEMS BY DR. P. Ef McKINNIE ILLUSTRATIONS BY Florence Johnson and Sara Crosby. CHICAGO Press of Shea Smith & Co. 1896 <\ "- d ) /is; Of Copyrighted, 1896 By P. L. MCKINNIE, Chicago, III. CONTENTS. , Page Who Duty Parries Not ------ 9 God Is Accounting - - - - - - 11 Patriots of the Emerald Isle - - - - 15 Two Encampments - - - - - - \7 For the Blue and the Gray 19 One Hundred Years ------ 21 Love and the Rose Leaves ------ 22 The Sheep on the Coast - 24 My Mother -------- 26 Celestia ----... 27 The Boon of a Better Life ----- 28 Give a Lift to Mortals - 3o Nature's Voices ....... }2 Sherman and Porter Memorial - 34 Our Country and Flag ------ 36 Forgive, Forget ------- 37 Violets and Blue Eyes ------ 38 Only a Life ------- 39 The Assays There Will All Be True - - - - 40 A Birthday Greeting ------ 46 God Ciphers Me an' You ------ 49 The Temperance Millenium - - - - - 51 Page Cripple Tim and the Charity Ball .... 53 Love's Fetters ------- 56 America, Homeland - - - - - - - 57 Palmer Lake, Colorado - - - - - 58 Fidelity - - - - - - - 59 Evangeline ------- 60 God of Gold ------- 61 Love's Despair ------- 63 The Soldier ------- 63 note. The poems in this book except "For the Blue and the Gray" and "Blue Eyes and Violets" are selected from a volume of poems previously published by the same author, entitled "From Tide to Timber-Line. *■ -* TO MY WIFE. -* When you give a lift to mortals who are walkin' in the shadder Of a sorrow, an' you lighten it an' make their hearts beat gladder You will be one round up higher, up higher on God's ladder, Toward his heaven every day. J bid, page ji . GIVE A LIFT TO MORTALS AND 1/ OTHER POEMS. b\ i w WHO DUTY PARRIES NOT. 'HO is pure in heart, and duty parries not, Nor ever seeks an easy path By compromise with evil, hath A destiny of conflict and a warrior's lot. Victory shall come to him Only on the death within His heart of selfishness and lust, and greed Of gain. Evil tempts with gold, Or preferment, or threatens bold. So should his courage have the greater meed Of truth: that armored mail The shafts of Evil shall assail 10 WHO DUTY PARRIES NOT. In vain, and broken lie at feet of Victory won, With Right, and purity of heart And purpose, shall courage ne'er depart; But, putting on the buckler day by day, all duty done, The Victor's crown is won at last, Worthily, when the contest's past, To be worn as jewels that shall be a crown Of truth and courage pure, With noble aspirations to endure Unto the end. Then may he lay all burdens down, And in sweet silence, peaceful rest With Him who doeth all things best. GOD IS ACCOUNTING. Respectfully inscribed to the Sweaters, and to the Business Men who make such a system possible FORTY cents — Forty cents — She stitches and sews. Forty cents — Forty cents — The winter wind blows ! Forty cents for each dozen, And God only knows The child's chalice of woes. Hands weary and red, Cheeks pale as the dead; She is fourteen years old — Forty cents — She's a working" girl, — Let her brain weary whirl, — Slave to a miser churl Hoarding up gold. 11 :,■ ; She stitches and sews, Life ebbs, never flows. GOD IS ACCOUNTING. i'3 Want plowing" furrows, Disease making burrows, She is fourteen years old. Heed not her imploring look, Fear not the warning book ; God's poor — and his wrath to brook — Grind to get gold. She stitches and sews, Life ebbs, never flows. Only fourteen years old, — While on her face you read Hope's death, and bitter need. Misery for her decreed Adds to your gold. She is fourteen years old. Grind her down till sore want, Insatiate and gaunt, Drives her to the haunt Of vices untold. Then, Christians, pray for her, While fiends lay snare for her, None then to care for her, All hoarding gold. Forty cents — Does she sweat ? Canst thou, Christ, forget ? Forty cents — Where are the preachers ? She is one of Christ's creatures, She is wearing his features — 14 GOD IS ACCOUNTING. " Fourteen years old." They forget when he turned The money tables and spurned The sweaters who yearned To hoard up more gold. Forty cents for the working girl ; Let her brain fevered whirl — Lips growing white almost as the snows.- She is only fourteen, and dying, but sews;— Sews where disease and vice ever dwell ; Sews in a den that's the threshold of hell, That you may gain gold. Though your soul may be sold. Forty cents — she is counting — Forty cents — God's accounting. Ah, here, here for her is fortune at last. Her little heart throbbing, yet faster, more fast, Forty cents — she is counting — "Five pennies for fare and five for bread, And five for — " " Forty cents, forty cents." Then the notice was read. The sewing girl's dead, And God is accounting. PATRIOTS OF THE EMERALD ISLE. OH, when, lovely isle of speech and of song, Oh, when shall be surcease of thy bitter wrong? Thou hast drained to the dregs War's chalice of woes, Of Famine, of Slaughter, and sore feudal blows; And misrule and greed are joined hand in hand To decry and despoil thy once happy land, To poverty-shakle thy warm-hearty race, And evil and law join hands in the chase. For Hungary bleeding, for Greece when she cried, Thy people shed blood, thy sons for them died. Where Freedom has struggled through hundreds of years, No land and no tongue plead in vein to thy ears. From the fields of the Boyne, through the zones of the world, To her throne, Appomattox, has Freedom unfurled Her banner; but there he has rallied and died For the boon that his own native isle is denied. 15 16 PATRIOTS OF THE EMERALD ISLE. Oh, bring then, the shamrock, and cover his grave, From the green hills of Erin, the land he would save; While his soul with brave Emmet's inspiration will bring So long as the bells of loved Shannon shall ring. His voice for his native land cannot be hushed. The truth to the earth can never be crushed; From the grave he shall speak, with unpalsied tongue, And the wrongs of the Emerald Isle shall be sung In the name of her martyrs, till at last, on her crest, In a halo of peace, shall her liberty rest. ?%s*M^^ TWO ENCAMPMENTS. CTJLL hail! comrades, noble G. A. R., j\. From clime to clime, from near and far, From pole to pole, and Orient come, With banner and fife, and stirring drum, With patriot heart-beat, all fall in. Let the quick pulse throb at reveille's din, And the broad Sierra's echo clear The Grand Encampment's roll-call " here." To comradship a tribute yield, So dearly bought on^battlefield, In a pilgrimage to the golden gate, Where story of field and camp await. — In the regal splendor of Pullman cars — For they "tramp" no more, the G. A. R.'s — High over the summit's rocky divide, Where the eagle soars, to safely glide ; From the Royal Gorge to timber-line, Through Castle Gate without countersign ; On the Marshall Pass the neighboring stars Will greet in Review the G. A. R.'s; And the sentinel peaks that " taps " ne'er know, Will raise their hoary caps of snow In grand salute to the men in blue, Who, firm as they, stood staunch and true. 17 TWO ENCAMPMENTS. In the home of the clouds, where nature dies, From the summits of earth to touch the skies, And feel once more the phalanx unbroken. Shoulder to shoulder, with no word spoken, They may join our ranks who march no more, For a moment of time from eternity's shore, And the pledge that was sealed with the clasp of death Shall be sworn again with the living breath, While we hear in the winds the rustle of wings, That a message from their encampment brings To ours: that the battle is scarcely won, And the pledges redeemed of '61, For human rights, and justice true, To the noble army of boys in blue; For the sorrows of War have no surcease, Save in justice only: " Let us have peace." FOR THE BLUE ANDlTHE;GRAY.* *In a shallow cut on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, between Altoona and Kenesaw Mountains, is the grave of an unlnown soldier. The skeleton was discovered buried there some years after the war. It was impossible to determine whether he had been a Union or a Confederate sol- dier. The remains were rebmied by the railway section hands close beside the track, and a tablet placed by the grave con- taining the words, "Unknown Soldier." It will be remembered that it was from Altoona to Kenesaw Mountains that General Hooker flashed the signal to General Corse, ''Hold the fort, for we are coming," on which was based the well-known hj'mn of that name. The above lines were suggested to the author, who visited the grave on a recent trip to the south. MEMORIAL. SLEEPING the sleep that knows no awaking, Soldier unknown: what matters it now ? Dumb is reveille when sunrise is breaking, Sleeping alone on Kenesaw's brow From whence flashed the signal to Altoona's captain, " Hold to the fort, for I am coming now." Sleeping the sleep of peace, weary soldier, In storm or in sunshine, in frost or the dew, Unknown of name or unknown of army, Whether " blue " or the " gray," God knows he was true, And He gave him welcome to bivouac celestial, In the fort that he holds for the " gray and the blue." 19 20 FOR THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. Undisturbed in his sleep on the highway of traffic, By the side of the rail that binds us anew, The north and the south in bond of new union, Where all are united and loyal and true, And as they pass by him, the north'ron or south'ron Drop a tear for the unknown, the " gray or the " blue." No colors wave o'er him; no watchman on duty, Guarding the spot where he sleeps in the clay, Save only the tribute of flowers in the springtime, From Kenesaw wafted by night and by day On soft southern winds: the signal God's sending From the fort that He holds for the " blue and the gray." JW ONE HUNDRED YEARS. 1776-1876. /TlVE retrospect a regal dower, VJ Vouchsafed in conflict's crucial hour, On field or forum where were cast The lines that bind us to the past, When souls of men bade men to stand And offer lives for native land, For Liberty, and hearthstone shrine — Man's right, decreed by Will divine. New stars are born of golden hue, Intwined in folds red, white and blue; A banner fills Aurora's skies, The dawn of hope to waiting" eyes ; Then comes a code that crowns a race, And Saxon foes meet face to face, At Lexington, on Bunker Hill. Late Vassals, now are Kings at will. Through jungles stained with loyal blood, O'er Delaware's ice-gorging flood, From hills of Maine to placid James, The scroll is bright with valiant names. " A yeoman race ! a yeoman King ! A Washington !" doth welkin ring. With loud huzzas; through joys and tears, The echoes fill a hundred years. 21 -;- •:■:;{ . 7 LOVE AND THE ROSE LEAVES. CTT FRAGRANCE I, from Araby, J -A. From vales of Cashmere captured, From Occident, from Orient, An atmosphere enraptured. With odors sweet, I come to greet, Thy senses all caressing; And, ravishing with pleasures meet, I bring to thee a blessing. My prison walls without portray, By Art's deft hand reflected,— Rich roses rare, and blossoms fair, In colors all perfected; . And yet, behold, Lifeless and cold, Of rose flowers but a seeming While I exhale, e'en from the mold, The essence of their dreaming. 22 LOVE AND THE ROSE LEAVES. 2) And I, rose soul, live evermore With True Love, my handmaiden. When sorely pressed, then I the more Give perfume richly laden. True Love and I Can never die: Death proves but our perfection; And we do give nor plaint nor sigh When crushed, — but fond affection. I come, — the spirit of the flowers, — Intangible, yet token Of hope, and faith, and vows that pass Through shades of death unbroken; All, thee I bring, On fragrant wing, Love, love to thee confessing; May all thy life perennial spring Be ever, is my blessing. 24 THE SHEEP ON THE COAST. THE SHEEP ON THE COAST. TTTHE winds blow fierce from the hills to the sea: J- But the rocks, like a fortress, shall keep The wrath of the storm from the flock on the shore; For the Master He loveth His sheep; And they tranquilly rest in love and sweet peace, And the lambs shall lie down and sleep; For the storm by the Shepherd is tempered for them, For the Master He loveth His sheep. O weary, heartbroken, and storm-beaten soul, There's a shelter for all who will seek, And He heareth thy cry,— a hope unexpressed. Oh! the Master He loveth His sheep. The Rock that doth break the wrath of the sea, And the Voice that doth quiet the deep, Shall guard thee, and guide to a haven of rest. Oh! the Master He loveth His sheep. 26 MY MOTHER. MY MOTHER. TT7HEY tell me she is dead. That sainted face in life, -*- More saintly still in death, Changed only by a breath ; But she my mother still. My soul, in strife With knowledge infinite And reason most finite, Doth grope to know. The dead to us are real; For, since I see her not, Her face is ne'er forgot; And, in my soul, I know, and knowing, feel My mother's presence still: And so my finite will, By reason throned, by faith is mastered well. Though she dead to nature be, Alas ! she is not dead to me. My beloved mother, who loved me, doth dwell Yet with me, sainted soul, Until the veil aside shall roll. Her precepts, trusting God, henceforth shall ever be My guide; and, by them led, When others call me dead, Then will she welcome me to God's eternity. CELLSTIA. TTTO realms of love away, away, JL As radiant dawn to radiant day. Than Ariadne fair, I ween, Celestia rules a lovlier queen. Eternal there a crown she wears; Lo ! in her hand a scepter hears. A goddess pure, of love divine- All love bears tribute to her shrine ; And naught but joy beams from her eyes, To lure e'en Love from Paradise. In all the realms of Love ere this None save Celestia's love is bliss. 27 28 THE BOON OF A BETTER LIFE. THE BOON OF A BETTER LIFE.