Classic Poem

XLI.

Or, sparing these, send Her whose simplest words
Have power to charm, — whose warbled, childish song,
Fluent and clear and bird-like, strikes the chords
Of sympathy among the listening throng, —
Whose spirits light, and steps that dance along,
Instinctive modesty and grace restrain:
The fair young innocent who knows no wrong, —
Whose slender wrists scarce hold the silken skein
Which the glad Mother winds; — shall She endure this pain?

XLII.

Away! The thought — the thought alone brings tears!
They labour — they , the darlings of our lives!
The flowers and sunbeams of our fleeting years;
From whom alone our happiness derives
A lasting strength, which every shock survives;
The green young trees beneath whose arching boughs
(When failing Energy no longer strives,)
Our wearied age shall find a cool repose; —
They toil in torture! — No — the painful picture close.

XLIII.

Ye shudder, — nor behold the vision more!
Oh, Fathers! is there then one law for these,
And one for the pale children of the Poor, —
That to their agony your hearts can freeze;
Deny their pain, their toil, their slow disease;
And deem with false complaining they encroach
Upon your time and thought? Is yours the Ease
Which misery vainly struggles to approach,
Whirling unthinking by, in Luxury's gilded coach?

XLIV.

Examine and decide. Watch through his day
One of these little ones. The sun hath shone
An hour, and by the ruddy morning's ray,
The last and least, he saunters on alone.
See where, still pausing on the threshold stone,
He stands, as loth to lose the bracing wind;
With wistful wandering glances backward thrown
On all the light and glory left behind,
And sighs to think that H E must darkly b confined!

XLV.

Enter with him. The stranger who surveys
The little natives of that dreary place
(Where squalid suffering meets his shrinking gaze),
Used to the glory of a young child's face,
Its changeful light, its coloured sparkling grace,
(Gleams of Heaven's sunshine on our shadowed earth!)
Starts at each visage wan, and bold, and base,
Whose smiles have neither innocence nor mirth, —
And comprehends the Sin original from birth.