Orphan

“ SONG OF THE ORPHAN I will go into the field and talk to the dew; and together with the dew I will bemoan our unlucky fate.
I will climb a hill and fall into thought: I was left an orphan; I have no friends.
In my tiny garden grows a lovely lily.... And what is that to me, if I am still young, if I am still an orphan?
As the soaking hemp rots in the water, so lives an orphan in this world. ”

“ He had been left an orphan some years before, but had found a father and a mother in every household in the community. He was at home with all, and although he was attached to one family in a particular manner, he was nevertheless equally the favourite of the rest. If the bread of strangers can ever be eaten without that bitterness which the great Italian poet has ascribed to it, surely love had sweetened its salt for the shepherd orphan-boy. ”

“ And let thy sad glance seek the orphan's God.
He, when the rains descend, and surges roll,
Bounds the rough billows with his mighty span,
He breaks the tempest, calms the troubled soul,
Stills the wild storm, and heals the heart of man. ”

“ What friend, what tie, shall make up for her eternal absence? What even are the present sufferings of the orphan child, to the dreary void, the irreparable loss she will feel through all her future years. ”

“ I have burdened you with orphan children,
With orphan children two or three.
Don't let our children go hungry or cold;
If they do wrong, don't slap or beat them.
When you take out the baby, rock it in your arms. ”

“ Ah! no, never trust your mother's orphan boy to strangers, or to his own guidance. Go for the poor, desolate lad, and never leave him, or suffer him to leave you. I know what orphanage in childhood is, dear Thurston, and so must you. Bring the boy home. And if he lives with you, I will do all I can to supply his mother's place."
"Dear girl! dear, dear Marian, my heart so longs to press you to itself. A plague upon these horses that keep us so far apart! ”

“ But oh, horror! in place of the coin and jewels, armour and apparel, it was filled with wasted forms bowed with misery and distress! the tear-worn orphan, the neglected sick. Here she saw lying a youth, wan and emaciated, struck down in all the promise of boyhood, and his mother tore her hair in agony by his side. ”

“ The kind of boy who would have been saved by the devotion of a mother who understood him, he had been left doubly an orphan at an age so early that he had but a confused memory even of his mother's face. ”

“ Rejoice! rejoice! still cry'd the croud,
⁠My mother answer'd with her tears!
Why are you crying thus, said I,
⁠While others laugh and shout with joy
She kiss'd me, and with such a sigh,
⁠She call'd me her poor Orphan Boy!
What is an Orphan Boy? ”

“ The lady whom Florence overheard talking to her little orphaned niece about her father’s cruel coldness toward her truly said: “Not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s care.” ”

“ The little orphan grew, meanwhile, as a garden rose that accident has thrown amid briers and weeds—blooming with alien beauty, and unfolding its soft petals—and shedding its ambrosial odour beneath the airs of heaven, unharmed by its strange position. Lovely as a day of paradise, which, by some strange chance, visits this nether world to gladden every heart, she charmed even her selfish protectress ”

“ ORPHAN BESS.
I am sure that most of our young friends know the meaning of the word "orphan"; and perhaps among the numerous readers of the Little Gleaner are some that are orphans themselves. But if some of the younger ones do not understand what is meant by the word, we must tell them that, when children have lost both parents by death, we call them orphans. Very sad indeed it is to lose both father and mother while young, for no earthly friend can really fill their place. ”

“ The sun shines but dimly on the head of the orphan, for sorrow claims such as its own, and no earthly power can release from its embrace. When a father dies, and she who ‘loves with a deep, strong, fervent love,’ is laid in the grave, then is the brightness of earthly existence extinguished.”
Children, how accurately do the above lines describe the lonely and forsaken condition of the orphan!
Have you never felt your little hearts throb with sorrow when you saw the children of the Orphan Asylum walk quietly down the aisle of the church and seat themselves in regular order in the front pews? ”

“ Raise not a building that has not a strong foundation; if thou dost, beware.
Discourse concerning Kindness to Orphans
Protect him whose father is dead; remove the dust from his raiment, and injure him not. Thou knowest not how hard is his condition; no foliage is there on a rootless tree. Give not a kiss to a child of thine own in the sight of a helpless orphan. If the latter weep, who will assuage his grief? If he be angered, who will bear his burden? See that he weeps not, for the throne of God trembles at the orphan’s lament. ”

“ The whole story of the night was then calmly recited; and when the mother heard how the stripling had followed her sweet Hannah into the storm, and borne her in his arms through a hundred drifted heaps—and then looked upon her in her pride, so young, so innocent, and so beautiful, she knew, that were the child indeed to become an orphan, there was one who, if there was either trust in nature or truth in religion, would guard and cherish her all the days of her life. ”

“ It is I, the poor, nameless, penniless orphan, that he loves, because I have proved myself to be sincere, brave, and generous. And I am so truly loved that he offers a life of comparative ease, and an honourable position to me, who seemed destined to a life of poverty, if not absolute want. ”

“ A child who, being always with grown-up people, learned to think long before her proper time—a child who had never lain down to sleep when a storm was raging without praying God to bring those who were on sea, safe to land—a young thing who had seen women wringing their hands and mourning for the dead—who having lost both father and mother herself could understand the meaning of the word orphan, and cry with the fatherless children as they talked about the parents who might never again come home. ”

“ THE ORPHAN.
THEY who cease as time goes by,
‘Father, mother dear,’ to cry,
They are needy, they are poor,
Gold and silver though they store;
How much more then poorer he
Who to strangers’ doors must flee! ”

“ Yes, in future life, the orphan frequently owned that all his earthly comforts had sprung from the decision which he had been strengthened to make when, at the turning-point of his course, he had stood at the door of the infant school, listening with a penitent heart to the hymn which his mother had taught him! ”

“ Just like a grain of mustard seed did this great charity begin.
More than ten years ago, a poor man lay in a miserable bed, dying. His little children were weeping at his bedside, for their mother had gone to heaven long before; and they did not know who to look to for food and shelter, when they should be orphans. ”

“ Out of the wealth the Master gave unto her She clothed the needy and the hungry fed; The poor will mourn a true friend taken from them Above her will the orphan's tear be shed. The orphan's prayer, a prayer of power unbounded. ”

“ “My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing, ”

“ In almost every case, an orphan was said to be a child deprived of one or both parents; and, what is very singular, the term orphan occurs but once throughout the Old and New Testaments. In Lamentations it says, ‘We are orphans, and fatherless, and our mothers are as widows.’ Now, in the opinion of many, the orphan and fatherless, and those whose mothers are as widows, here mentioned, are three distinct sets of children—that is, as the lament says, some of us are orphans, meaning children without father and mother, some of us are fatherless ”

“ Left an orphan at an early age, she was deprived of those tender home influences which childhood so so insatiately craves, and to which it is entitled. The family who took her out of pity, having many children of their own, were well disposed and intended to discharge their duty towards her. ”

“ ORPHAN, the term used of one who has lost both parents by death, sometimes of one who has lost father or mother only. In Law, an orphan is such a person who is under age. The Late Lat. orphanus, from which the word, chiefly owing to its use in the Vulgate, was adopted into English, is a transliteration of ὀρφανός, in the same sense, the original meaning being “bereft of,” “destitute,” classical Lat. orbus. The Old English word for an orphan was steópcild, stepchild. ”

“ Oh, how the memory of his mother and her counsels came before the poor orphan.
Still, how could he help it? He had done rightly, he felt sure; and he knew that his father would say so were hecums alive. ”

“ The beautiful orphan— (for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as the heroine of the tale you bid me tell ought to be,—should she not have to the dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, and your sweet smile, and your eyes of blue, that are never, never silent? Ah, pardon me that in a former tale I denied the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember that, to atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind) —the beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from the flowers in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving them into a wreath for Warbeck. ”

“ The balm of healing.
In that peaceful home
The fair-haired orphan was a fount of joy,
Spreading her young heart like a tintless sheet
For Love to write on. Sporting 'mid the flowers,
Caroling with the birds, or gliding light
As fawn, her fine, elastic temperament
Took happiest coloring from each varying hour
Or changing duty. Kind, providing cares
Which younglings often thoughtlessly receive
Or thankless claim, she gratefully repaid
With glad obedience. ”

“ My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed, clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the orphan as her own child. ”

“ Wachst doch Grās un' Dörner.
Gottunju, Gottunju,
Gottunju du mein,
Wās hāst du mich nit beschaffen
Mit dem Masel wie meine Freund?
Water foams, water foams, one can hear afar. When father and mother die the orphan sheds tears.—The orphan goes, the orphan goes, the orphan does all in vain. People judge, people say that the orphan is good for nothing.—The orphan goes, the orphan goes, in pain and in sorrow. People judge, people say that the orphan is drunk with wine.—With my friends, with my friends there grows wheat and grain. ”

“ But then, all at once, almost in a day, mamma, she found herself an orphan, with no inheritance but poor relations and they with already too many orphans in their care. For, as my aunts say, joking, that seems to run in our family, to become orphans. ”

“ There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in the Bower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he not an orphan himself; and could a better be desired? And why go beating about Brentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for you, when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker? ”

“ the heart has all too many tears;
But none are like those that wait
On the blighted love, the loneliness
Of the young orphan's fate. ”

“ It is true that her own desolate state as an orphan without brothers or sisters had its compensation in that there was no wife to whom the dreadful tidings had to be imparted, nor any fellow orphans to have their bereavement broken to them. ”

“ O mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place.
Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose? ”

“ But this new child of ours shall be a new spur to me.”
“She must be an orphan, John, or she will not love us as much as we shall love her.”
“An orphan of course. I think I shall put an advertisement in the paper to this effect: — Wanted to adopt. An orphan of poor but respectable parentage, beautiful as a cherub, clean as a new-laid egg, with a character of docility and determination in equal parts; eyes blue, voice tranquil, laugh electric; one whose heart sings and heels dance spontaneously ”