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The Comrades

Poems Old & New: By William Canton
  

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11

The Choir Boy

Let him slumber; do not blame!
In the heat his eyelids fell,
And the preacher's voice became
Water babbling down a dell.
Shall I chide those eyelids closed?
Shake and wake him? Not at all.
Once an early Christian dozed,
Listening even to St. Paul.
Let him slumber; he has sung;
And his treble, shrill and sweet,

12

Soars ev'n now perhaps among
Angels round the Mercy Seat.
If the swallow hath a nest
On Thine altars, Lord my King,
Surely here Thy child may rest,
When his song hath taken wing.