A CRY FROM ARMENIA
By Ellen M. Mitchell
(The New Armenia)
Through all this golden sunshine there peals a mournful cry,
Help, help us, or we perish—help, help us, or we die!
Our babes are begging wildly for one small crust of bread,
They faint, they die with hunger—is there a God o’erhead?
Oh, haste with friendly succor, we are starving while we wait,
To thousands sinking graveward your help may come too late;
Our gaunt forms totter feebly; our lips grow wan and white,
Oh, God, how hard it is to starve beneath a sky so bright!
Your hearths are crowned with plenty, your homes with blessings rife;
The scattered crumbs that strew your floor might save a human life;
Oh, can you hear, unmoved and calm, of all our bitter need,
Nor feel your quivering heart-strings with throbs of pity bleed?
Dear brethren, would ye follow Christ, our starving children save,
Keep back the shuddering feet that tread the margin of the grave;
Send on your bounty quickly, with timely comfort haste,
For human lives are ebbing out each moment that you waste.