“Beggars”

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.