Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/702

 "'Me boy,' says God, 'take a million tons of th' choicest seeds of th' flowers of Heaven an' take a trip around th' world wi' them. Scatter them,' says He, 'be th' roadsides an' th' wild places of th' earth where my poor live.'

"'Aye,' says the charioteer, 'that's jist like ye, Father. It's th' purtiest job of m' afther-life an' I'll do it finely.'

"'It's jist come t' Me in a dream,' says th' Father, 'that th' rich have all the flowers down there an' th' poor haave nown at all."

At this point I got in some questions about God's language and the kind of flowers.

"Well, dear," she said, "He spakes Irish t' Irish people, an' the charioteer was an Irishman."

"Maybe it was a woman!" I ventured.

"Aye, but there's no difference up there."

"Th' flowers," she said, "were primroses, buttercups, an' daisies, an' th' flowers that be handy t' th' poor, an' from that day to this there's been flowers a-plenty for all of us everywhere!"

The Leaden-Eyed

(From "The Congo")

(See pages 335, 599)

Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly,