Two little children sit by my side, I call them Lily and Daffodil; I gaze on them with a mother's pride, One is Edna and the other is Will.
Both have eyes of starry light And laughing lips over teeth of pearl. I would not change for a diadem My noble boy and darling girl.
To-night my heart o'erflows with joy; I hold them as a sacred trust. I fain would hide them in my heart, Safe from tarnish of moth and rust.
What should I ask for my dear boy? The richest gift of wealth or fame? What for my girl? A loving heart And a fair and spotless name?
What for my boy? That he should stand A pillar of strength to the state. What for my girl? That she should be The friend of the poor and desolate.
I do not ask that they shall never tread With weary feet the paths of pain; I ask that in the darkest hour They may faithful and true remain.
I only ask their lives may be Pure as gems in the gates of pearl, Lives to brighten and bless the world-- This I ask for my boy and girl.
I ask to clasp their hands again 'Mid the holy hosts of heaven; Enraptured, say: "I am here, O God! And the children thou hast given."
[Illustration: GEN. ANTONIO MACEO. The great Cuban Negro warrior.]
Gen. Maceo was a born warrior. He came of a race of warriors. Of ten brothers, he was the last survivor who had escaped the bullets of the Spaniards in the ten-years' war, begun in 1868, and the present war. They were all soldiers and patriots, following in the footsteps of their father, and they all died fighting for Cuba.
The distinguishing characteristics of Antonio Maceo were intense love of Cuba, courage that knew no fear, and a natural genius for war. He was of Spanish and African blood, and his enemies often accused him of waging a race war, but this he always denied, and his friends believed him. He fought only for Cuban independence.
Gen. Maceo was the terror of the Spaniards. They feared him as they feared no other Cuban. They put a price of twenty-five thousand dollars on his head, dead or alive. The Spaniards could not capture or defeat him in open warfare, and the work of destroying him fell to the part of an infamous traitor in his camp: his physician, who betrayed him into the hands of the enemy.
Maceo was great in his life, and in the manner of his death he has raised up friends for his beloved Cuba all over the world.