A First Series of Hymns and Songs/Descriptive Songs/The Orphan Beggar
55. The Orphan Beggar.
Ah, pity, kind ladies, a poor little boy,
Whose father and mother are dead;
Who hungry and shiv'ring approaches you now,
To beg for a mouthful of bread.
Oh, think what it is to parade the wide world,
And to have neither friend nor a home;
To be rated and forc'd from each half-open'd door,
With a rudely said, "Beggar, begone!"
Yet once I was happy and cheerful as you,
My father he work'd at his mill,
My mother she busily spun at her wheel,
And we thought not of danger or ill.
But the cholera came, and my father fell sick,
My mother stood by at his death;
Then she too was seized, and within a few hours
Convulsively gasp'd her last breath.
Ah me, what a sight for a helpless young boy,
A father and mother both dead!
Yet the hard-hearted landlord soon turn'd me adrift,
To roam and to beg for my bread.
Then pity, kind ladies, the poor orphan boy,
That has not a friend or a home;
Who is browbeat and scolded wherever he goes,
And wanders forlorn and alone.