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301

THE RICH AND THE POOR.

Go, child, and take them meat and drink,
And see that they be fed:
Alas, it is a cruel thing
The lack of daily bread!
Then come that I may speak with thee
Of things severely true;
Love thou the poor, for Jesus Christ,
He was a poor man too.
They told me, when I was a child,
I was of English birth;
They called a free-born Englishman
The noblest man on earth.
306

My home was in a pleasant place,
In England's history known:
And pride in being English-born
Still with my growth had grown.
I thought all rich men good, the poor
Content with life's award;
I thought each church throughout the land
A temple of the Lord.
I saw the high-born and the poor
Low bending side by side,
And the meek bishop's holy hands
Diffuse a blessing wide:
And round and round the sacred pile,
My reverent fancy went,
Till God and good King George at once
Within my heart were blent.
These were my days of innocence,
Of ignorance and mirth;
307

When my wild heart leapt up in joy
Of my pure English birth.
Oh! England, mother England,
Proud nurse of thriving men,
I've learned to look on many things
With other eyes since then.
I've learnëd divers lessons;
Have seen and heard and thought;
And oftentimes the truest lore
By human woe was taught.
Thus, on a day I saw a man,
An old man bent and hoar,
And he broke flints upon the road
With labour long and sore.
The day, it was a day in June,
The nightingales sung loud,
And with their loads of snowy bloom
The hawthorn branches bowed.
308

The highway side was bright with flowers;
The leafy oak-trees wove,
Above me and the brooding bird,
A peaceful, green alcove.
The earth, the air, the sun-lit sky,
Of gladness they were full;
My heart rejoiced; just then I heard
Laborious sounds and dull.
They were the old man's hammer strokes,
That fell upon the stone,
Stroke after stroke, with bootless aim;
Yet he kept striving on.
I watched him: coach and chariot bright
Rolled past him at full speed,
Horsemen and peasants went along;
And yet he took no heed.
Stroke after stroke, the hammer fell
Upon the self-same stone;
309

A child had been as strong as he;
Yet he kept toiling on.
Before him lay a heap of flints,
Hard flints not yet begun,
His day's work, 'mid the singing birds
And 'neath the joyous sun.
I watched him still; and still he toiled
Upon the self-same stone,
Nor ever raised his head to me,
But still kept toiling on.
“My friend,” said I, “your task is hard,
And bootless seems your labour;
The strokes you give go here and there,
A waste of power, good neighbour.”
Upon his tool he propped himself,
And turned toward me his eye,
Yet did not raise his head the while;
Then slowly made reply:
310

“The parish metes me out my work,
Twelve pence my daily fee;
I'm weak, God knows, and I am old,
Fourscore my age and three.
“Five weeks I could not strike a stroke;
The parish helped me then;
Now, I must pay them back the cost;
Hard times for aged men.
“I have been palsied, agued, racked
With pains enough to kill;
I cannot lift my head, and yet
I must keep working still,
For I've the parish loan to pay;
Yet I am weak and ill.”
Then slowly lifting up his tool,
The minute strokes went on;
I left him, as I found him first,
At work upon that stone.
311

The nightingales sang loudly out;
Joy through all nature ran;
But my very soul was sick, to think
On this poor Englishman.
Again: it was the young spring time,
When natural hearts o'erflow
With love to breathe the genial air,
To see the wild flowers blow.
Anear a populous town, I walked
In meadows green and fair;
And, as I sauntered slowly on,
A little child came there.
A child she was of ten years old,
Yet with no mirth of mien;
With sunken eyes and thin pale face,
And body small and lean.
Yet walked she on among the flowers,
For all her pallid hue;
312

And gathered them with eager hands,
As merry children do.
Poor child! the tears were in my eyes,
Her thin small hands to see
Grasping the healthy flowers that looked
More full of life than she.
“You take delight in flowers,” I said,
And looked into her face:
“No wonder; they 're so beautiful!
Dwell you anear this place?”
“No,” said the child: “within the town
I live; but here I run
Just for a flower, at dinner time,
And just to feel the sun.
“For oh! the factory is so hot,
And so doth daze my brain;
I just run here to breathe the air,
And then run back again.
313

“And now the fields are fresh and green,
I cannot help but stay,
And get for Tommy's garden-plot
These pretty flowers to-day.”
“And Tommy, who is he?” I asked.
“My brother,” she replied.
“The engine-wheels they broke his arms,
And sorely hurt his side:
“He'll be a cripple all his days.
For him these flowers I got:
He has a garden in the yard,
The neighbours harm it not;
The drunken blacksmith strides across
Poor Tommy's garden plot.”
As thus we talked we neared the town,
When, like a heavy knell,
Amid the jarring sounds was heard
A distant factory bell.
314

The child she made a sudden pause,
Like one who could not move;
Then threw poor Tommy's flowers away,
For fear had mastered love:
And with unnatural speed she ran
Down alleys dense and warm;
A frightened toiling thing of care,
Amid the toiling swarm.
Her scattered flowers lay in the street,
To wither in the sun,
Or to be crushed by passing feet;
They were of worth to none.
The factory-bell had cut down joy,
And still kept ringing on.
Proud was I, when I was a child,
To be of English birth;
For I surely thought the English-born
Had not a care on earth.
315

That was my creed when I was young,
It is my creed no more;
For I know, woe's me! the difference now
Betwixt the rich and poor.
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