And sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,
And Bludsoe's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of Prairie Belle.
He warn't no saint--but at judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim
Longside of some pious gentleman
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He'd seen his duty, a dead sure thing,
And went fer it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-goin' to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] By permission of Mrs. Hay.
KING ROBERT OF SICILY[8]
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Appareled in magnificent attire,
With retinue of many a knight and squire,
On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat,
And heard the priests chant the Magnificat,
And as he listened, o'er and o'er again
Repeated, like a burden or refrain,
He caught the words, "Deposuit potentes
De sede et exultavit humiles;"
And slowly lifting up his kingly head,
He to the learned clerk beside him said,
"What mean those words?" The clerk made answer meet,
"He has put down the mighty from their seat,
And has exalted them of low degree.
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