Poems and Lancashire Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Till as ye ought your barren lands,
And drain your moss and fen;
Give honest work to willing hands,
And food to hungry men;
And hearken—all that have an ear—
To this unhappy cry,—
“Are poor folks' only chances here
To beg, to thieve, or die?”

II

With kindly guerdon this green earth
Rewards the tiller's care,
And to the wakening hand gives forth
The bounty slumbering there;

But there's another, nobler field
Big with immortal gain,—
The morasses of mind untilled;—
Go,—cultivate your men!

III

Oh, ponder well, ye pompous men,
With Mammon-blinded eyes,
What means the poverty and pain
That moaning round you lies:
Go, plough the wastes of human mind
Where weedy ignorance grows,—
The baleful deserts of mankind
Would blossom like the rose.

IV

But penny-wise, pound-foolish thrift
Deludes this venal age;
Blind self's the all-engrossing drift,
And pelf, the sovereign rage.

E'en in the Church, the lamp grows dim,
That ought to light to heaven,
And that which fed its holy flame,
To low ambition's given.

V

Just retribution hovers near
This play of pride and tears;
To heaven all worldly cant is clear,
Whatever cloak it wears;
And high and low are on one path,
Which leads into the grave,—
Where false distinctions flit from death,
And tyrant blends with slave.