Child with the hungry eyes,
The pallid mouth and brow,
And the lifted, asking hands,
I am more starved than thou.
I beg not on the street;
But where the sinner stands,
In secret place, I beg
Of God, with outstretched hands.
As thou hast asked of me,
Raising thou downcast head,
So I have asked of Him,
So, trembling, have I plead.
Take this and go thy way;
Thy hunger shall soon cease,
Thou prayest but for bread,
And I, alas! for peace.
“Beggars” as it appears in An American Anthology 1787-1899, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1900).
“Beggars” was first published in the November 1897 issue of Lippincott’s Magazine.