A Voice From Katy’s Grave
Among the many poetical effusions which have been elicited by reading the story of “Little Katy,” I think the following, which appeared in the New York Tribune, will be read with pleasure. It is from the pen of Mrs. B. F. Foster, of New York:—
With dizzy whirl, on rushed the wheels
Along the City’s murky street,
And music’s light, inspiring peals
Rang out from folly’s gay retreat;
And busy footsteps hurried past,
And human voices, harsh and wild,
Commingling, floated on the blast;
When the shrill accents of a child
Rose mid the din, in tones forlorn,
And cried, “Come, buy hot corn, hot corn!”
Like some sad spirit wafted by,
A stranger to the ways of earth,
Came up that little plaintive cry—
Sweet discord to the sounds of mirth.
Unheeded by the reckless crowd,
There stood a girl, a pale, wan thing,
And ’neath her bosom’s tattered shroud
There lurk’d an age of suffering;
While e’en till night approached the morn,
In feebler voice, she cried, “Hot Corn!”
The gas lamp’s glare fell on her face,
But lighted not her languid eyes;
And down her pallid cheeks, the trace
Of tears, bespoke her miseries;
With hunger gnawing at her heart,
She shivered, as the night wind blew
Her soiled and ragged clothes apart;
Till all insensible she grew,
And sinking in unblessed sleep,
Forgot to cry, “Hot Corn,” and weep.
Alone, so young, how came she there?
To sell hot corn so late at night;
Had she no friends, no home, nowhere
To rest, and hide her from the sight
Of the rude world? No mother? Hush!
That holy name is not the one
For Katy’s parent. Woman! blush
For thy lost sister; blush to own
That thou canst ever fall so low,
To plunge thy children into woe.
Within that mother’s heart, the light
Of love was quench’d, quench’d by the flood,
The damning flood, whose waters blight
All that is left of human good:
And in her breast that demon reigned,
Who “Give, give, give!” is ever crying;
Demanding still to be maintained,
While all within, around, is dying;
Outpouring in its baneful breath,
Destruction, sorrow, sin and death.
The lips which should have kiss’d away
Her daughter’s tears, dealt curses forth;
The hand which should have been her stay,
Was but the minister of wrath;
Blind to her wants, deaf to her prayers,
Regardless of the driving storm,
To open streets and midnight airs,
She drove that little shrinking form,
To earn a dram! In shame and scorn
With famished lips to cry, “Hot corn!”
“Hot corn, hot corn!”—night after night,
More faint and feeble grew that voice—
Still fiercely burned each glaring light,
Still music bade the town rejoice;
The ceaseless footsteps passed along,
Up came the wild discordant tones,
The voices of the thoughtless throng,—
The bounding wheels rolled o’er the stones,—
But midst the din, the rush, the roar,
Poor Katy’s cry is heard no more.
In one of those dark, noisome cells,
The wretched call their home, she lies
All motionless; the icy spells
Of death, have closed those weary eyes;
She speaks not now. Alas! how dread!
That calm reproachful silence, when
Beside the wronged and injured dead,
We kneel in vain! Low in that den
Behold the stricken mother cower;
Grown sober in one fearful hour.
She calls her, “Katy, darling!”—peers
Into that pale and sunken face,
She bathes her senseless brow with tears,
Sees on those bruised limbs, the trace
Of her own cruelty;—again
She calls, and prays for one last word,
Of blest forgiveness;—all in vain,
The answering voice no more is heard,
The soulless clay alone is there,
And fell remorse, and dark despair.
Weep, wretched woman, weep! That face
Shall haunt thee to thy dying day;
Nor time from memory erase
Thy child’s deep wrongs; for they
Shall scorch into thy guilty breast;
In mad excitement thou shalt hear
Her cries; and midst thy fitful rest,
Shall that pale phantom form appear,
And o’er thy drunken moping, stand
To curse thee with an outstretched hand.
Yet not alone with thee, abides
That curse. Oh, Men, and Christians! can
Ye robe yourself in god-like pride,
And boast your land, the one where man
Is most exalted; yet permit
The Demon Drunkenness to roam
Unfettered through your streets; to sit
By ev’ry corner, ev’ry home—
The weak and wretched to allure
To drink, to suffer, and endure?
In mercy, then, arrest the reign
Of this dread fiend; and Oh! protect
Man from his self-inflicted pain.
Spare the young wife, whose hopes are wreck’d,
Whose heart is crushed, whose home forsaken,
Whose life’s a desolated wild.
To infant prayers and tears awaken,
And from the mother save the child.
Hark to that echo!—“Save, oh, save!”
Pleads a sad voice from Katy’s grave.
“Pleads a sad voice from Katy’s grave—
Save, oh, save!”
Fathers! mothers! sons! daughters! husbands! wives! Christians! philanthropists! All—brothers and sisters!—hear ye that voice? If ye do not, then, indeed, are ye deaf. Then have I cried in vain. In vain I have visited the abodes of wretchedness and sin, to draw materials for my panorama of “Life Scenes in New York.” In vain I have painted you dark scenes of life, instead of those which shine out in the noonday sun.
In vain have I endeavored to awaken your sympathies by relations of tales of woe, or painted vice, as I have met with it in my midnight rambles, to guard you from its snares, if I have failed to touch that chord in your heart which brings a tear to the eye, for it is that which will prompt you to action—to sleepless vigilance, to eradicate from the world the great cause of such human misery as I have depicted. It is that which, will prompt you to give, if nothing more,
“Three grains of corn,
Only three grains of corn, mother,”
towards the redemption of the fallen, and protection of those who need a staff and a guide to hold them back from the precipice over which they have gone down to ruin.
Reader, if you have not yet done it, do not close the book until you have paid the tribute of a tear at the grave of