Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Largess

By Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta (1815–1891)

GO forth in life, O friend, not seeking love;

A mendicant, that with imploring eye

And outstretched hand asks of the passers-by

The alms his strong necessities may move.

For such poor love to pity near allied,

Thy generous spirit should not stoop and wait,

A suppliant, whose prayer may be denied.

Like a spurned beggar’s at a palace gate:

But thy heart’s affluence lavish uncontrolled;

The largess of thy love give full and free,

As monarchs in their progress scatter gold;

And be thy heart like the exhaustless sea,

That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow,

Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.