 | Romance and revery |  |
72
POVERTY.
They that have borne such miseries yet endure;
They that so often have cried are crying still;
We learn to name them lightly, these, our poor,
As part of earth's irreparable ill.
Us their sad voices have slight power to thrill,
Their desolate haggard eyes but faintly grieve,
Since we, who meet their anguish face to face,
Through many a year its rigid truth receive
As poverty's eternal commonplace!
They that so often have cried are crying still;
We learn to name them lightly, these, our poor,
As part of earth's irreparable ill.
Us their sad voices have slight power to thrill,
Their desolate haggard eyes but faintly grieve,
Since we, who meet their anguish face to face,
Through many a year its rigid truth receive
As poverty's eternal commonplace!
All men, we muse, in shadow of trouble grope,
Yet these are girt unchangeably from birth
With dubious gloom whereby the star of hope
Shines vaguely on harsh crag or sinuous firth;
Yet who may alter this unvarying dearth?
Philosophy's astral splendors cannot light
Cold want's disheartening dimness of eclipse,
And science, although she weigh vast worlds in night,
Brings no new morsel of bread to famished lips!
Yet these are girt unchangeably from birth
With dubious gloom whereby the star of hope
Shines vaguely on harsh crag or sinuous firth;
Yet who may alter this unvarying dearth?
Philosophy's astral splendors cannot light
Cold want's disheartening dimness of eclipse,
And science, although she weigh vast worlds in night,
Brings no new morsel of bread to famished lips!
73
Famed thinkers, noble alike of brain and deed,
Have grown white-haired in pondering how to give
These millions, bruised by poignant thorns of need,
Some potent and benign alleviative.
But still their burdening hardships grimly live;
Still in the resonant city's careless heart,
While deep groans pass on the wind like empty breath,
Cadaverous throngs, mankind's far greater part,
With rags for armor fight the assaults of death!
Have grown white-haired in pondering how to give
These millions, bruised by poignant thorns of need,
Some potent and benign alleviative.
But still their burdening hardships grimly live;
Still in the resonant city's careless heart,
While deep groans pass on the wind like empty breath,
Cadaverous throngs, mankind's far greater part,
With rags for armor fight the assaults of death!
At toil they are stabbed with cold or scathed with heat;
Tear-soaked, blood-stained, is the scant food they win;
From earliest youth round their unheeded feet
Bloom tanglingly the red-flowered weeds of sin.
Whatever bodily pain has worn them thin,
Whatever sorrow has racked them, still they hear
Starvation's rancorous wolves behind them press,
While vice and ignorance, each with ghostly leer,
Exult in mockery at their wretchedness.
Tear-soaked, blood-stained, is the scant food they win;
From earliest youth round their unheeded feet
Bloom tanglingly the red-flowered weeds of sin.
Whatever bodily pain has worn them thin,
Whatever sorrow has racked them, still they hear
Starvation's rancorous wolves behind them press,
While vice and ignorance, each with ghostly leer,
Exult in mockery at their wretchedness.
Child after child, they are born to shame and woe,
And stained at birth by even a mother's kiss,—
Too briefly pure, like those fair flakes of snow
That fall amid the impure metropolis!
What savage ineludible curse is this,
O sovereignty that rulest fate and time?
Why are these countless lives thus blindly wrecked,
And made to dreary suffering or mad crime
So terribly and so strangely pre-elect?
And stained at birth by even a mother's kiss,—
Too briefly pure, like those fair flakes of snow
That fall amid the impure metropolis!
What savage ineludible curse is this,
74
Why are these countless lives thus blindly wrecked,
And made to dreary suffering or mad crime
So terribly and so strangely pre-elect?
Age after age rolls onward; progress wheels
Her golden chariot over shattered wrong;
Louder the limpid voice of liberty peals,
Gladdening our world with archangelic song;
Yet multitudes below the virulent thong
Of this harsh doom go staggering to their graves
With feet that falter and with shapes that writhe.
O freedom, poverty has her droves of slaves;
Thou holdest but humanity's mean tithe!
Her golden chariot over shattered wrong;
Louder the limpid voice of liberty peals,
Gladdening our world with archangelic song;
Yet multitudes below the virulent thong
Of this harsh doom go staggering to their graves
With feet that falter and with shapes that writhe.
O freedom, poverty has her droves of slaves;
Thou holdest but humanity's mean tithe!
They suffer and die; they starve, burn, freeze and faint!
We hug our treasures, and the old ill endures ...
How long, O infinite God, ere this wild plaint
Shall pierce the trance in which our spirit immures
Its best nobility, and the “mine” and “yours”
Clash with hate's fierce antithesis no more?
How long ere love on a loveless world shall flow?
How long, how long, ere we few, safe on shore,
Fling spars to drowning myriads there below?
We hug our treasures, and the old ill endures ...
How long, O infinite God, ere this wild plaint
Shall pierce the trance in which our spirit immures
Its best nobility, and the “mine” and “yours”
Clash with hate's fierce antithesis no more?
How long ere love on a loveless world shall flow?
How long, how long, ere we few, safe on shore,
Fling spars to drowning myriads there below?
75
Have mercy, O men! O ye that strength possess,
Bridge firm, with pity and charity for span,
The void of egotism, of selfishness,
Whose gulf so sternly sunders man from man!
Help with grand aid the unconsummated plan
Of centuries moving to millennial goals!
O seek that loftier grace, that richer good,
That prouder patriotism, where earthly souls
Meet mightily in sacred brotherhood!
Bridge firm, with pity and charity for span,
The void of egotism, of selfishness,
Whose gulf so sternly sunders man from man!
Help with grand aid the unconsummated plan
Of centuries moving to millennial goals!
O seek that loftier grace, that richer good,
That prouder patriotism, where earthly souls
Meet mightily in sacred brotherhood!
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