Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A BIT OF HEAVEN, by GERTRUDE D. JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A BIT OF HEAVEN, by                    
First Line: Child of the slums, how happy
Last Line: Is a child—or a tramp—or a beast.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson, G. Gertrude
Subject(s): Death - Children; Heaven; Death - Babies; Paradise


CHILD of the slums, how happy
Playing there on the stair,
Clad in your dirty remnants,
With feet unwashed and bare.

You sit all day on the doorstep,
Where people pass you by,
Ne'er heeding the mite of a human
Making a glad mud-pie.

You hear not the hurrying footsteps:
You laugh and you point with fun
At the rippling light on a puddle
Flashing a ray of sun.

You pile up stones like a castle,
And then you tumble them down,
And care not that labor is fruitless,
You prince of the beggar-town!

You play like a wealthy spendthrift
That knows no end to his gold;
You play like a king of the gnome-world
Ruling his hunchbacks old.

You play like that thot-free creature
Of woods and streams—the fawn;
You play like a scarlet fall-leaf
Greeting the wind of dawn.

You play like a god—or a savage—
That knows nor time, nor place,
The light of a brute thing's heaven
Shines in your beggar-face.

And you are the ruler of heaven,
Mud-pies your ambrosial feast!
Ah, close to the blissful and timeless
Is a child—or a tramp—or a beast.





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