"Beggars"

Beggars

Child with the hungry eyes, 

The pallid mouth and brow, 

And the lifted, asking hands, 

I am more starved than thou. 

I beg not on the street; 

But where the sinner stands, 

In secret place, I beg 

Of God, with outstretched hands. 

As thou hast asked of me, 

Raising thou downcast head, 

So I have asked of Him, 

So, trembling, have I plead. 

Take this and go thy way; 

Thy hunger shall soon cease, 

Thou prayest but for bread, 

And I, alas! for peace. 

"Beggars" as it appears in An American Anthology 1787-1899, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1900).

"Beggars" was first published in the November 1897 issue of Lippincott's Magazine.