may be, that the tale you hear,
Of pressing wants and losses borne
Is heaped or colored for your ear,
And tatters for the purpose worn ;
But surely Poverty has not
A sadder need than this,
A mask still meaner than her lot,
Compassion's scanty food to share.
It may be that you err, to give
What will but tempt to further spoil
Those who in low content would live
On theft of others' time and toil:
Yet sickness may have broke or bent
The active frame or vigorous will;
Or hard occasion may prevent
Their exercise of humble skill.
It may be that the suppliant's life
Has lain on many an evil way
Of foul delight and brutal strife,
And lawless deeds that shun the day;
But how can any gauge of yours
The depth of that temptation try?
What man resists, what man endures,
Is open to one only eye.
Why not believe the homely letter,
That all you give will God restore?
The poor man may deserve it better,
And surely, surely, wants it more :
Let but the rich man do his part,
And, whatsoe'er the issue be
To those who ask, his answering heart
Will gain and grow in sympathy.
Suppose that each from nature got
Bare quittance of his labor's worth,
That yearly-teeming flocks were not,
Nor manifold-producing earth;
No wilding growths of fruit and flower,
Cultured to beautiful and good,
No creatures for the arm of power
To take and tame from waste and wood!
That all men to their mortal rest
Passed shadow-like, and left behind
No free result, no clear bequest,
Won by their work of hand or mind!
That every separate life begun,
A present to the past unbound,
A lonely, independent one,
Sprung from the cold mechanic ground!
What would the record of the past,
The vision of the future be?
Nature unchanged from first to last,
And base the best humanity:
For in these gifts lies all the space
Between our England's noblest men,
And the most vile Australian race
Outprowling from their bushy den.
Then freely, as from age to age
Descending generations bear
The accumulated heritage
Of friendly and parental care,
Freely as Nature tends her wealth
Of air and fire, of sea and land,
Of childhood's happiness and health,-
So freely open you your hand!
THE PATIENCE OF THE POOR.
Between you and your best intent
Necessity her brazen bar
Will often interpose, as sent
Your pure benevolence to mar :
Still every gentle word has sway
To teach the pauper's desperate mood,
That misery shall not take away
Franchise of human brotherhood.
And if this lesson comes too late,
Woe to the rich and poor and all!
The maddened outcast of the gate
Plunders and murders in the hall :
Justice can crush and hold in awe,
While Hope in social order reigns ;
But if the myriads break the law,
They break it as a slave his chains !
THE PATIENCE OF THE POOR.-R. M. Milnes.
WHEN leisurely the man of ease
His morning's daily course begins,
And round him in bright circle sees
The comforts Independence wins,
He seems unto himself to hold
An uncontested natural right
In life a volume to unfold
Of simple, ever-new delight.
And if, before the evening close,
The hours their rainbow wings let fall,
And sorrow shakes his bland repose,
And too continuous pleasures pall,
THE PATIENCE OF THE POOR.
He murmurs, as if Nature broke
Some promise plighted at his birth,
In bending him beneath the yoke
Borne by the common sons of earth.
They starve beside his plenteous board,
They halt behind his easy wheels,
But sympathy in vain affords
The sense of ills he never feels.
He knows he is the same as they,
A feeble, piteous, mortal thing,
And still expects that every day
Increase and change of bliss should bring.
Therefore, when he is called to know
The deep realities of pain,
He shrinks as from a viewless blow,
He writhes as in a magic chain :
Untaught that trial, toil, and care
Are the great charter of his kind,
It seems disgrace for him to share
Weakness of flesh and human mind.
Not so the People's honest child,
The field-flower of the open sky,
Ready to live while winds are wild,
Nor, when they soften, loth to die :
To him there never came the thought
That this, his life, was meant to be
A pleasure-house, where peace, unbought
Should minister to pride or glee.
You oft may hear him murmur loud
Against the uneven lots of Fate,
You oft may see him inly bowed
Beneath affliction's weight on weight;-
THE PATIENCE OF THE POUR.
But rarely turns he on his grief
A face of petulant surprise,
Or scorns whate'er benign relief
The hand of God or man supplies.
Behold him on his rustic bed,
The unluxurious couch of need,
Striving to raise his aching head
And sinking powerless as a reed :
So sick in both, he hardly knows
Which is his heart's or body's sore;
For, the more keen his anguish grows,
His wife and children pine the more.
No search for him of dainty food,
But coarsest sustenance of life,-
No rest by artful quiet wooed,
But household cries and wants and strife
Affection can at best employ
Her utmost of unhandy care,
Her prayers and tears are weak to buy
The costly drug, the purer air.
Pity herself, at such a sight,
Might lose her gentleness of mien,
And clothe her form in angry might,
And as a wild despair be seen,
Did she not hail the lesson taught
By this unconscious suffering boor
To the high sons of lore and thought,-
The sacred Patience of the Poor.
This great endurance of each ill,
As a plain fact, whose right or wrong
They question not, confiding still
That it shall last not overlong;
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