Volume 1 — A ROSE AT LAST BY CLIFTON BINGHAM

I T was only a rosetree slender On a dingy window sill, In the heart of the busy City, With its mingled good and ill. And the Angels must have seen it, Unwilling to let it die, For it thrived and bore a rose-bud Under that darksome sky! AWHITE face watched it daily With joy in its childish eyes, As she played alone in the garret Under the city skies: It brightened the dingy windows, Each night as she crept to bed, Though hungry and loveless and lonely, "It will soon be a rose," she said. T HERE at the window one morning, The bud was a rose so fair, But the garret was still and silent, There was no little white face there! It was smiling in happy slumber, Its pain and loneliness past, For the Angels who loved her were saying, That the bud was a rose at last!