 | Rhymes with reason and without |  |
58
THE MAN IN THE 'BUS.
“One pull for the right!” and he quailed as he read,For it quickened to life a conscience long dead;
And an ocean of memories rushed through his mind
Of duties neglected, occasions declined,
Where, acting with heart and generous might,
He oft could have given “one pull for the right;”—
Occasions long past, to be recalled never,
Evanished and gone, like his power, forever!
And he mused on the text, and felt, as he mused,
Like one who was judged for past powers abused,
And he sighed that the world should have shut from the light
That cardinal duty, to “pull for the right.”
And wrong unadjusted rose up in his view,—
Old evils, world old, that had led on to new,
Where might, unregarding the right or the just,
Crushed the humble and lowly with wrongs to the dust;
Where the money-god's altar had risen on high,
And gold made the standard to gauge virtue by;
Where judges and laws against justice rebel,
And truth lies asleep in a fathomless well!—
But just as he vowed that, happen what might,
He would henceforth and evermore “pull for the right,”
“Two pulls for the left” brought him close to his door;
'T was an omnibus dream—only this—nothing more.
| Rhymes with reason and without | |