 | Jones Very : The Complete Poems |  |
341
My People are destroyed for lack of Knowledge.
—Hosea 4:6.
For lack of Knowledge do my people die!No fell diseases in our land abound,
No pestilential vapors fill the sky,
No drought, or barrenness has cursed the ground;
The harvest-fields are white on every side,
For God has given to all with liberal hand;
To none His sun and rain has He denied,
But with abundance blessed our fruitful land.
But Him, who gives to all, they have not known!
His truth, his mercy, and unfailing love;
Who sends not on one favored race alone,
His gifts and mercies from the heavens above;
Therefore the land doth mourn, and, day by day,
War wastes our fields, and doth the people slay!
Poem No. 131; c. 21 September 1861
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