Classic Poem

Waste treasure like water, ye noble and great!
Spend the wealth of the world to increase your estate;
Pile up your temples of marble, and raise
Columns and domes that the people may gaze
And wonder at beauty, so gorgeously shown
By subjects more rich than the king on his throne.
Lavish and squander—for why should ye save
“The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave”?

Pour wine into goblets, all crusted with gems—
Wear pearls on your collars and pearls on your hems;
Let diamonds in splendid profusion outvie
The myriad stars of a tropical sky!
Though from the night of the fathomless mine
These may be dug at your banquet to shine,
Little care ye for the chains of the slave
“The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave.”

Behold at your gates stand the feeble and old,
Let them burn in the sunshine and freeze in the cold—
Let them starve; though a morsel, a drop will impart
New vigor and warmth to the limb and the heart:
You taste not their anguish, you feel not their pain,
Your heads are not bare to the wind and the rain—
Must wretches like these of your charity crave
“The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave”?

An army goes out in the morn's early light,
Ten thousand gay soldiers equipped for the fight;
An army comes home at the closing of day;
Oh, where are their banners, their goodly array?
Ye widows and orphans, bewail not so loud—
Your groans may embitter the feast of the proud;
To win for their store—did the wild battle rave—
“The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave.”

Gold! gold! in all ages the curse of mankind,
Thy fetters are forged for the soul and the mind:
The limbs may be free as the wings of a bird
And the mind be the slave of a look and a word.
To gain thee, men barter eternity's crown,
Yield honor, affection and lasting renown,
And mingle like foam with life's swift-rushing wave
“The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave.”