"A Little Child Shall Lead Them"

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Title:     "A Little Child Shall Lead Them"
Author: Frances E. W. Harper [More Titles by Harper]

Only a little scrap of blue
Preserved with loving care,
But earth has not a brilliant hue
To me more bright and fair.

Strong drink, like a raging demon,
Laid on my heart his hand,
When my darling joined with others
The Loyal Legion * band.

But mystic angels called away
My loved and precious child,
And o'er life's dark and stormy way
Swept waves of anguish wild.

[* The Temperance Band]

This badge of the Loyal Legion
We placed upon her breast,
As she lay in her little coffin
Taking her last sweet rest.

To wear that badge as a token
She earnestly did crave,
So we laid it on her bosom
To wear it in the grave.

Where sorrow would never reach her
Nor harsh words smite her ear;
Nor her eyes in death dimmed slumber
Would ever shed a tear.

"What means this badge?" said her father,
Whom we had tried to save;
Who said, when we told her story,
"Don't put it in the grave."

We took the badge from her bosom
And laid it on a chair;
And men by drink deluded
Knelt by that badge in prayer.

And vowed in that hour of sorrow
From drink they would abstain;
And this little badge became the wedge
Which broke their galling chain.

And lifted the gloomy shadows
That overspread my life,
And flooding my home with gladness,
Made me a happy wife.

And this is why this scrap of blue
Is precious in my sight;
It changed my sad and gloomy home
From darkness into light.

[The end]
Frances E. W. Harper's poem: "a Little Child Shall Lead Them"

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