IN a mansion grand and stately,
On a wide and handsome street.
Lived a man of vast possessions,
With his little daughter sweet;
He had lots in many a city,
He had houses by the score,
He had broad and rolling, acres,
And a dwelling by the shore;
And he oft would tell his daughter,
As she sat with wondering eyes,
Of their worth and of their beauty
Till before her thoughts did rise,
Visions of their wondrous beauty,
And of all their wondrous worth,
Till the child-mind almost fancied
That there was as yet on earth
Not a state and not a county
Where her father did not own
Lands and farms and stately mansions,
Fruits of labor he had sown.
But into this home of comfort
Came a sorrow as a cloud:
Death will neither stay nor tarry,
At the mandate of the proud.
Rich and poor, the high and lowly,
Each must answer to the call.
Enters he the meanest hovel,
As he does the stateliest hall;
And this man of vast possessions
In his costly chamber lay,
Resting on a bed luxuriant,
Wasting by disease away.
Skilled physicians waited on him,
Loving lips pressed cheek and brow,
But the utmost skill and yearning
Could not change the verdict now.
Then one day, the learned physician
Called aside the little child,
Tenderly he stroked her tresses,
Spoke in accents low and mild:
“Do you know, my little darling,
That your father soon must go
To a far-off, far-off country—
Little darling, do you know?”
Opened then her eyes in wonder,
With a sudden strange surprise;
Then with tears and fears and trembling
To her father’s side she flies—
Climbs upon the bed beside him,
Lays her head close to his cheek,
In a sudden, dreadful anguish
That will scarcely let her speak.
Then she thinks of all his mansions—
Of the lands so broad and fair,
Of the home that must await him,
And their beauty rich and rare.
Slowly now her head she raises,
Gone the sorrow, and the fear;
Once again she smiles, then laughing,
Dashes from her eye a tear,
As she asks in accents tender:
“Papa, tell me, I would know,
Do you own a lovely mansion
In the land where you would go?
Doctor told me all about it—
How that you must go away
To a far-off, far-off country;
Have you there a mansion: say?
For the going will be pleasant
And you need not have a care,
If it is to your own mansion,
In that far-off land so fair.”
Then that stricken father faltered,
For, although he’d built with care
Many a fine and stately dwelling,
He had yet no mansion there.
What to him were now the acres
With their wealth of golden grain?
What to him were farms and houses?
What to him were earthly gain?
What to him, now he lay dying,
Were the many mansions here?
He must leave them all forever—
And he had no mansion there.
“A wise son heareth his father’s instruction; but a scorner heareth not rebuke.” Prov 13:1.
ML 11/18/1900