Memoirs of Anne C.L. Botta,: written by her friends. With selections from her correspondence and from her writings in prose and poetry.

2nne C. X. Cotta
TO MY FRIEND,
ON HIS BIRTHDAY.
Oh, Time! deal gently with my friend,
Who gently deals with all;
And on his loved and honored head
Let blessings only fall
In love to God, and love to man,
His days pass here below;
And so, to reach the home above,
He has not far to go.
But distant be that hapless day
That calls him from our view:
Heaven has so many souls like his,
And Earth, alas! so few
On another anniversary she wrote to him as follows:
TO MY FRIEND,
ON HIS BIRTHDAY.
He who has walked among his fellow-men
This life's rough path for threescore years and ten,
Bearing for others, on the weary way,
The heat and burden of the toilsome day;
Sounding the silvery notes of faith and hope
Whene'er the weak or the despairing droop;
Speaking the words of sympathy and love,
Far the wild discords of the world above;
Raising the fallen, succoring the opprest
The Holy Graal of unfound good his quest;
Holding aloft, a true and blameless Knight,
The stainless banner of the Just and Right:
He is the Christian hero of to-day,
And at his feet my tribute here I lay.
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