"The Sale of the Pet Lamb"

And cruelty has doomed the life

Of the young victim to the knife.

’Tis poverty’s resistless call

That doomed the innocent to fall;

Pity has claims, yet stronger still

The claims that spring from human ills;

And his is the domestic need,

That bids a father’s bosom bleed.

And see, the dreadful man is there

His purchase to his home to bear;

Even now he counts the long-earned sum,

While the poor housewife, downcast, dumb,

Stands with her half averted eyes,

As shrinking from the shining prize;

So needed for domestic use,

The tempting bribe, ah, how refuse?

But by her side stands one to plead,

With brimming eyes against the deed;

And with a mother’s fondness pressed

Close to her guilty heaving breast

Where not one worldly want is known,

There lies a Pet Lamb of her own.