Reverberations :: :: University of Virginia Library

Written in 1840, this poem expressed my sympathy with the ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-sheltered industrial population of our own country before the repeal of the Corn Laws. It appeared in some newspaper, and was noticed, I think, by the London Spectator. A Conservative friend, ignorant of the authorship, attributed it to an “inspired weaver.” When in 1843 I commenced my ministrations among the poor of an agricultural parish in the West of England, seven or eight shillings a week was the usual remuneration received by a labouring man.

O lords! O rulers of the nation!
O softly clothed! O richly fed!
O men of wealth and noble station!
Give us our daily bread.

For you we are content to toil,
For you our blood like rain is shed;
Then lords and rulers of the soil,
Give us our daily bread.

Your silken robes, with endless care,
Still weave we; still unclothed, unfed,
We make the raiment that ye wear.
Give us our daily bread.

In the red forge-light do we stand,
We early leave—late seek our bed,
Tempering the steel for your right hand.
Give us our daily bread.

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We sow your fields, ye reap the fruit,
We live in misery and in dread.
Hear but our prayer, and we are mute,
Give us our daily bread.

Throughout old England's pleasant fields,
There is no spot where we may tread,
No house to us sweet shelter yields.
Give us our daily bread.

Fathers are we; we see our sons,
We see our fair young daughters, dead:
Then hear us, O ye mighty ones!
Give us our daily bread.

'Tis vain—with cold, unfeeling eye
Ye gaze on us, unclothed, unfed;
'Tis vain—ye will not hear our cry,
Nor give us daily bread.

We turn from you, our lords by birth,
To him who is our Lord above;
We all are made of the same earth,
Are children of one love.

Then Father of this world of wonders!
Judge of the living and the dead!
Lord of the lightnings and the thunders,
Give us our daily bread.