Classic Poem

IN A HOVEL .

Over the moorland the wind waileth mournfully;
Ice-jewels glitter on heather and thorn;
Pale is the sunlight that trembles out fitfully
Over a hut where an infant is born.

None heeds his wailing, although it sounds pitiful;
None shields his form from the wind, cold and wild;
Heir to privation, scorn, ignorance, poverty —
Dark is thy destiny, plebeian child.

Child, in the pitiless ranks of humanity,
Fatherless, friendless and homeless art thou;
Even the bread that is dealt to thee scantily,
Thrice must be earned by the sweat of thy brow.

Cold is the hovel — the hearthstone is emberless;
Creaks the old door as it moves to and fro;
O'er the poor bed, where the mother lies shivering,
Busily flutters the white-fingered snow.

Pale is the cheek of the famishing sufferer,
Passing from poverty's vale to the grave;
Better by far had she died in her infancy,
Ere to the millions she added a slave.