University of Virginia Library

As Justice now I hold the balance fair,
Where money is, that must be kept with care;
And as the balance should be lifted even,
Instead of Ten, blind Justice cries Eleven.
All the worst cases ever can be brought
Throughout the whole of Yorkshire now are sought,
Against us masters in array are set,
While all the labourers who toil and sweat,
Apprentices of towns, are set aside,
These are forgotten while they us deride.
But Mercy ever sees where suff'ring dwells,
In mills, or where the mighty ocean swells;
The farmer's starving child is quite forgot,
The unemploy'd in many a roofless cot,
One universal cry 'gainst mills ascends,
'Tis thought to gain some low but selfish ends;
Deep, deep below, where do the miners go,
A world of death o'er heads and gloom below!
What can the rich, the vain, the childless know,
Theirs is false sympathy, these feel not woe;
These walk not in the dark, dark hours of night,
To bear their children money with delight;
Give these but eight, the family be but ten,
Wrapp'd in the deepest poverty, and then
How they would learn humility with years!
Their speeches then would fetch old Pluto's tears;
Surrounded in an evening with them all,
They ask for bread—and who can hear that call
But honestly must strive that bread to gain,
To keep their tears from falling down like rain?
Are places ready? No! how could they all
Into some other situation fall;
'Tis empty air, just as I said at first,
Or like a bubble—but the bubble's burst.
The boasting words of such the wise don't heed,
'Tis not to words we look, but to the deed.