Andrew Francis Lockhart, You Didn't Mean to Be Bad (1918)
“ You were hustlin' to play with the gang 'cross the way, But laddie, your lips were sore missed. It hurt her a heap when you dashed through the door, An' her patient blue eyes grew so sad; She wanted to press that mother's caress— But you didn 't mean to be bad. Oh, none o' us want to be bad, my boy. But we do an' say so many things Without thinkin' the rose a careless hand throws May be bristlin' with briars an' stings. An' many's the arrow we hurt with our might Without aim—yet long after, my lad. We find that our dart has pierced a heart— An' we didn't mean to be bad! ”
