Classic Poem

The Poor

Let Age no longer toil with feeble strife,
Worn by long service in the war of life;
Nor leave the head, that time hath whitened, bare
To the rude insults of the searching air;
Nor bid the knee, by labour hardened, bend,
O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend!
If, when from heav'n severer seasons fall,
Fled from the frozen roof and mouldering wall,
Each face the picture of a winter day,
More strong than Teniers' pencil could portray;
If then to thee resort the shivering train,
Of cruel days and cruel man complain,
Say to thy heart (remembering Him who said)
" These people come from far, and have no bread."
Nor leave thy venal clerk empowered to hear;
The voice of Want is sacred to thy ear.
He, where no fees his sordid pen invite,
Sports with their tears, too indolent to write;
Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain
To hear more helpless animals complain.
But chief thy notice shall one monster claim,
A monster furnished with a human frame,
The Parish-Officer! Though Verse disdain
Terms that deform the splendour of the strain,
It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe
On the sly, pilfering, cruel overseer;
The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust,
Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust!
When the poor hind, with length of years decayed,
Leans feebly on his once subduing spade,
Forgot the service of his abler days,
His profitable toil and honest praise,
Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread,
This slave, whose board his former labours spread?
When harvest's burning suns and sickening air
From labour's unbraced hand the grasped hook tear,
Where shall the helpless family be fed,
That vainly languish for a father's bread?
See the pale mother, sunk with grief and care,
To the proud farmer fearfully repair;
Soon to be sent with insolence away,
Referred to vestries, and a distant day!
Referred — to perish! Is my verse severe?
Unfriendly to the human character?
Ah! to this sigh of sad experience trust:
The truth is rigid, but the tale is just.
If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear,
Think not that patience were a virtue here.
His low-born pride with honest rage control,
Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul.
But, hapless! oft through fear of future woe,
And certain vengeance of th' insulting foe,
Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their pray'r,
The last extremes of penury they bear. . . .
Unnumbered objects ask thy honest care,
Beside the orphan's tear, the widow's prayer.
Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless,
Unnumbered evils call for thy redress.
Seest thou afar yon solitary thorn,
Whose aged limbs the heath's wild winds have torn?
While yet to cheer the homeward shepherd's eye,
A few seem straggling in the evening sky!
Not many suns have hastened down the day,
Or blushing moons immersed in clouds their way,
Since there a scene, that stained their sacred light,
With horror stopped a felon in his flight:
A babe just born, that signs of life expressed,
Lay naked o'er the mother's lifeless breast.
The pitying robber, conscious that, pursued,
He had no time to waste, yet stood and viewed:
To the next cot the trembling infant bore,
And gave a part of what he stole before;
Nor known to him the wretches were, nor dear,
He felt as man, and dropped a human tear.
Far other treatment she who breathless lay
Found from a viler animal of prey.
Worn with long toil on many a painful road,
That toil increased by nature's growing load,
When evening brought the friendly hour of rest,
And all the mother thronged about her breast,
The ruffian officer opposed her stay,
And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away;
So far beyond the town's last limits drove,
That to return were hopeless, had she strove.
Abandoned there, with famine, pain, and cold,
And anguish, she expired — the rest I've told.
" Now let me swear — for, by my soul's last sigh,
That thief shall live, that overseer shall die."
Too late! — His life the generous robber paid,
Lost by that pity which his steps delayed. . . .
The living object of thy honest rage,
Old in parochial crimes and steeled with age,
The grave churchwarden! — unabashed he bears
Weekly to church his book of wicked prayers;
And pours, with all the blasphemy of praise,
His creeping soul in Sternhold's creeping lays!