Classic Poem

Good sprites there were, to men most good,
In work to win their livelihood,
Good Skills by name, and all their days
They gladly worked in many ways,
And soon had gather'd under hand
Good stores of wealth throughout the land.
For stewards o'er their store, Good Skills
Sought other faithful sprites, Good Wills ,
And Wills they found, and Wills they had;
But some were good, and some were bad.
" Take," said Good Skills , " Take this our hoard,
And deal it out by our good word,
To ever faithful hands and minds,
For work and deeds of all good kinds;
To those who do the best they can
To heighten on the weal of man;
And you will find good work will keep
Unshrunk this evergiving heap:
And Goodwill , Love, pure love of kind,
May hence pay out, with faithful mind,
The gifts our dead, in loving life,
Had will'd to helpless child or wife,
And what the master may have meant
For workfolk overyear'd and spent;
And deal ye to the sick that would,
But cannot, work, their daily food
But, mind you, never give a mite
To pay the gamester's finger-slight,
And never make our store a stake
For gamblers' wicked hands to take;
Nor pay it for an empty claim
To shares of nothing but a name,
To men who lyingly enhance
The untrue price of risk and chance;
Nor ever let it be the meed
Of any wicked word or deed."
But now, as we have said, Good Skills
For stewards had some Evil Wills
Who outdealt of the store amiss,
And more to mankind's bane than bliss.
They often gave a handsome prize
To swindling men for cunning lies,
And paid the hypocrite high meeds
For empty words to hide bad deeds,
And bribed the girl to stain her name
And soul with ever loathsome shame;
Enrich'd the foodster for his cheats
And shams in bad for wholesome meats,
And paid the cunning hand to hide
Bad work beneath a fair outside,
And fed the hireling pen to raise
The worthless man by unearn'd praise,
And write bad books, that while they gain
The reader's gold, become his bane.
They bribed false witnesses to draw
On guiltless men the stroke of law,
And tried to bribe the judge to wrest
The law and make the bad side best.
They paid the slaver ready cash
For slaves to put beneath the lash,
And hired the grim assassin's knife
To take a man's unwarded life:
They made it well worth while to slight
The weaker man and side with might,
And well they paid the keenest guile
That worketh with a twofold wile,
That learns to raven by a flaw
Of wording, and can rob by law;
And lawmakers who give good names
To laws they make with lower aims,
And strip by law of half their store
The weaker few to please the more,
And hold they do no wrong, because
'Tis all made lawful by their laws.
And thus the store Good Skills had meant
For good to man was far mis-spent
On those who did not what they ought,
Or else did naught, or worse than naught.
And where the wrong pays best, a throng
Will leave the right to follow wrong.

Good Skills could earn enough of good
For all men's happy livelihood,
If Evil Wills did not misdeal
Their store of wealth against our weal.