XXXVII.
ON THE OUTCAST.
O misery, whose sorry way
All steps must tread at last,
Thy part alone how many play,
With thee their portion cast:
From morn to night on the check-mated board
Theirs the lost game, its teachings theirs to hoard.
And well may such the doubt address
Why they were put to life for only pain,
Their infant features modelled to express
What others act for gain!
But, pledged the pleasant world and all its charms,
No place to them remained except thy arms.
The refuse of the sunny breeze
Thou gatherest for thy poor;
The cutting hail in gusts that freeze
Their limbs outside the door.
Heaven's roof lets in the rain and wind,
Where then can they a shelter find?
Ask Heaven to bid the famine cease,
With plenty at her beck;
Ask her to lend a hand to ease
The millstone round the neck;
Relentless, she no help to such can tend
Whose shaking limbs in worship never bend!
They laugh, but penury the more
Is on their pointed cheek;
They sleep, and golden visions score:
The windfalls of the weak.
They, waking, clutch them in their hold,
But with the dream departs the gold.
Their sleep the riot of the dead
Whose sins deny them rest;
A world with terror overspread,
The soul by hell-hounds prest,
The wave of dream heaves up and down,
The floating sense in lava-floods to drown.
Now to the rotten, herbless bank
They drift and strike the shoal;
The stream is thick, the sedge is lank;
It is the common goal.
All thence afresh their start shall take
To run for the eternal stake.
EPODE.
The city of the poor, by fancy built,
Stands on the mind that such a scene unfolds:
Though growing wealth draws poverty and guilt,
Suffering so massed no faithful eye beholds.
To labour is a right, to beg a wrong;
They both are freely at the choice of all;
The sick and lame to their own mansions throng;
The public purse is open to their call.
