Classic Poem

What cries awake the new-born day,
What early sounds of woe?
'Tis Cruelty begins her sway,
And Pity's tear to flow.

For hark, through many a village nigh
The milky mothers moan,
The while their young return the cry,
And echo groan for groan.

While sad through many a toilsome road,
And weary street they go,
They feel the ever-wounding goad,
The never-ceasing blow.

How beat their trembling hearts with fear!
And now, ere yet they break,
In Pity's, and in Reason's ear,
Their lowings seem to speak.

" Cease, cruel Butcher! cease to pain
With agonizing smart,
A living link of that great chain
Of which thou form'st a part!

Tor'n from a tender mother's side,
From ev'ry fost'ring care,
To feed the pamper'd sons of Pride
A thousand ills we bear.

Do not with needless mis'ry then
Those thousand ills increase,
But let the life we give to men
Thy bloody mind appease.

Do not with unremitting glee
Unceasing torments ply:
For oft beneath thy blows I see
Some fellow-suff'rer die.

Thou, who can'st boast of Reason's ray,
O! think, unfeeling Man;
The cruelties I feel to-day
Rise not from Nature's plan.

Shall Mercy, attribute divine!
On thee, from day to day,
Bestow'd from an exhaustless mine,
Nought but thy guilt display?

O! let thy harden'd bosom fear
The ills which round thee grow:
Know that the Pow'r which plac'd thee here
Looks down on all below.

O! know that with an equal eye
He all his works surveys;
Or great, or small, or low, or high,
H E sinks, and HE can raise.

'Tis HE who sends the grateful throe
Which bids the Spirit fly,
From these dark realms of life and woe,
To reach its native sky.