University of Virginia Library

WANTED.

Wanted—As porter in a store, an honest, steady man, who knows his duty, and will do it. Apply,” etc.—

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Why, after all, a common want;
'Tis felt in every place and station,
In every corner of the land,
In this—I fear in every nation.
'Twas in the journal yesterday—
I call your close attention to it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
When lawyers lend themselves to fraud,
And give their brains for highest hiring;
When judges buy and sell the law,
Truckling to mobs, with knaves conspiring—

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Dikè exclaims, her altar stained,
As she, and good men round her, view it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
When learned physicians soil their art
By fawning ways and cozening speeches,
By secret shares in nostrums vile,
By stabbing at their brother leeches—
At conduct base and mean as this,
Aisklepios cries, as they pursue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
When certain clergymen are found
To wink at sins of rich church-members;
To smother out the Christian fire,
Rather than blow to flame the embers,
St. Peter shakes his keys, and says—
I can't with half his scorn imbue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
When in all parties fellows rule
Whose place it is to serve in prison;
When all the veriest scum of earth
Upon the surface has arisen;
When politics has grown a trade,
And ruffians base alone pursue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
When honest purpose surely fails;
When honor meets with sneers and jeering;

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When fanes to gold as God are built;
When patient merit has no hearing;
When sense of right is buried deep,
Since fraud and wrong and avarice slew it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”
Oh! for a leader of the mass
Which fain would bear these things no longer!
Oh! for a hand to rend the chain
That every moment grows the stronger!
We die beneath the upas tree—
Is there no axe at hand to hew it?—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”