A mendicant is at my gate.

Admit him? Yes; for none shall say
That he who seeks in want my door
Is ever harshly turned away;
His plea is heard, if nothing more.

I leave my comforts with a sigh,
And, passing to the outer hall,
Behold a wanderer doomed to die,--
So ill, I look to see him fall.

I know his story ere he speaks;
And listening to his labored breath,
I trace, with tears upon my cheeks,
His long and hopeless fight with death.

A poor, storm-beaten, lonely waif,
Lured southward from a colder clime
By hope and that unfailing faith
That health will come again in time!

Alas! too late; the dread disease
Hath fixed its roots too firmly there;
And now sick, friendless, at my knees,
He pours forth his heart-breaking prayer.

What are his needs? Before all, food!
Hot soup, bread, wine, until at last
A sense of human brotherhood