p. 9 | In the Egret’s Nest by Annie McQueen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 8, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 39.

In the Egret’s Nest

By Annie McQueen

The angel who numbers the birds for the God of all things that be, Had come afar from his journeying over the land and the sea, And he spake to the Lord of the sparrows: “True was my count to-day, Them that were slain I numbered, and the sparrows that fell by the way; And down in the reeds and water grass of an island in the West, I counted the young of an egret that starved in the egret’s nest.

“And some they were slain that man might live, for so hast Thou made the law; And some for the lust of their shining plumes; and all of them I saw, And counted all whose songs were hushed within their little throats— The slain for the law of living, and the slain for their shining coats. True have I numbered them all, and the smallest along with the rest— The young that starved in the rushes, alone in the egret’s nest!”

And the Lord of the little creatures, who marks where His sparrows fall, And in the hollow of His hand makes room for the weak and the small— The Father of the fatherless gave ear, and He listened and heard, And, behold, He has asked a question: “And what of the mother bird?” Now answer, you who wear the plumes that were stripped from the mother breast; Tell why the young of the egret starved, alone in the egret’s nest!

—Annie McQueen, in the “Independent.”