I DARED not look at him,
\nMy eyes with tears were dim,
\nMy spirit filled with hate
\nOf man’s depravity,
\nI hurried through the gate.<\/p>\n
I went but I returned,
\nWhile in my bosom burned
\nThe monstrous wrong that we
\nOft bring upon ourselves,
\nAnd yet we cannot see.<\/p>\n
Poor little erring wretch! I spoke to him the while: With eyes bloodshot and red, The mother yesterday I wished the lad good-bye, I ‘member when a smaller boy, NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. \u2014This was a lad of fifteen. No doubt he deserved the flogging administered by order of the Court: still, I could not bear to see him\u2014my own flesh\u2014stretched out over the bench, so I went away to the Post Office near by. When I returned, all was over. I saw his naked bleeding form, and through the terrible ordeal — so they told me — he never cried. But when I spoke to him he broke down, told me between his bursts of tears how he had been led astray by bad companions, and that his mother intended sending him over-sea. He could scarcely walk, so I gave him tickets for the tram. He had a trustful face. A few minutes after, my bitterness of spirit at the miserable necessity of such punishment came forth in song, which I leave rugged and unpolished as I wrote it at the moment.<\/p>\n
\nThe cutting tamarind switch
\nHad left its bloody mark,
\nAnd on his legs were streaks
\nThat looked like boiling bark.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\nAt first he tried to smile,
\nBut the long pent-up tears
\nCame gushing-in a flood;
\nHe was but of tender years.<\/p>\n
\nHe told me of a father dead
\nAnd lads like himself rude,
\nWho goaded him to wrong:
\nHe for the future promised to be good.<\/p>\n
\nSaid she was sending him away,
\nAway across the seas:
\nShe told of futile prayers
\nSaid on her wearied knees.<\/p>\n
\nAnd left him with a sigh:
\nAgain I heard him talk\u2014
\nHis limbs, he said, were sore.
\nHe could not walk.<\/p>\n
\nA mother’s pride, a mother’s. joy,
\nI too was very rude:
\nThey beat me too, though not the same,[2]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd has it done me good?<\/p>\n
\n