On Eternity's confines I stand,
And look back on the paths I have trod:
I pant for the summoning hand,
That shall call me away to my God!

My temples are sprinkled with snow;
The sands of existence decline;
The dwelling is cheerless and low,
The dwelling that soon must be mine.

No longer beside me are found
The forms that of old were so dear;
No longer the voices resound,
That once were so sweet to mine ear.

The wife of my bosom is lost;
Long, long, has she sunk into sleep:
My boy on the ocean was toss'd,
He rests in the caves of the deep.

A villain my daughter betray'd;
Her home and her father she fled:
But Heav'n has in justice repaid
The tears he has caus'd me to shed.

Her peace and her honor he stole;
Abandon'd, despairing, she died:
Remorse quickly seiz'd on his soul,
And he rests in the grave by her side.

Oh! where are the friends of my youth,
The lovely, the good, and the brave?
All flown to the mansions of Truth!
All pass'd through the gates of the grave!

On parents, and children, and friends,
Have mortality's arrows been driv'n;
But swiftly the darkness descends,
And my spirit shall join them in Heav'n!

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,—
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,'—
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game 'he did not understand.'

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,—
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers,—that's wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—
Which the same I am free to maintain.