FEBRUARY 26, 1885.

Oh, horrors! is it — is it true

What I have read?— if I but knew!

O, God, tell me where can I fly,

Not to be found when I shall die!

They say dead waifs are oft by night

Robbed of a decent burial's right;

That fiends the friendless bodies bear

To crowds of waiting students, where

Men tear them up for men to see.

O, God, sweet God, do pity me!

And I will humbly pray to men:

If this should come within the ken

Of one who lives a true-loved life,

Of one who sister has, or wife;

One who loves women for the best

That is in them, whose lips have pressed

Pure, genuine lips, whom women trust,

Whose heart is free from loathsome lust;

One whom I would have loved if he

Brother or husband were to me —

I ask you — nay, I do command

With that imperiousness you so

Like from a white and shapely hand —

I order you — but no, no, no;

I am past that — I humbly pray

That you will see that I unmarred

Have Christian burial. Guard, oh guard,

You men with manly hearts and souls,

My poor dead body from the ghouls!

I strove alway to keep it pure

As the soul in me; it has been

Type of the thoughts that lived within,

The white slave of what shall endure,

My spirit's loved though humble mate;

Let none its white limbs desecrate!

Weaker — yet weaker —‘ tis to die

This sharp pain bids me. Ah! good-bye,

World that I was too weak for —