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Famine

A Masque [by W. J. Linton]

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Ye all have done your utmost: but alone
Had not succeeded. Wherefore ye are blamed.
Why is my Mightiest One unnamed?
Weak are Grasshoppers and Blight;
Waste and War may be ashamed:
Ye ministers to my delight?
Ye servants worthy me?
Know I not what each hath done?
Finish'd, ye have scarce begun.
On the trail of Blight I follow'd fast,
For I knew that it could not last:
The desert, barren and drear,
Will blossom again next year.
When the Grasshoppers disappear
They come not for years again;
The corn crowds the prairies, the deer
Hide in herds in the clover,
The birds sing over
The golden miles of grain.
O, ye devour in vain;
And Waste's swift car and the scythes of War
Leave but a scar.
Lo! the earth is now at peace,
And the locusts are no more;
Autumn's days will have surcease
Ere they garner all the store
Of this year's harvest. Yet see! see!
Worshipers crowd unto me—

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Crowding in their thousands:—See!
Where is He
Who alone hath made me sure?
God of the unstarved Poor! appear!
We wait for thee.