Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3766, 22 January 1881, Page 1

Select Poetry.

A PLEA FOE THE «POOR. 3 Br H. J. DANIEL. ' '^' : We know the poor are Qod's especial care, And yet the money-maddened world combined, A life-long spiteful grudge towards them bear; Deaf to their cries, and to their merits blind. A tatter'd garment sterling worth may: hide— . f^A "soul of goodness " and a mind of might; ■...-. When silks and velvets, in their flaunting pride, Conceal a spirit blacker than night. The poor are many, and the rich are few, Yet all are equal in their Maker's eye ; When then should men with emnity pursue His poorer brother—justice asks bin why 7 Why pun&h poverty and pardon crime 7 Why starve the honest man and feed the knare! Why blight the flower of manhood in its prime, Aiid make misfortune help him with » slave. Pride—ay, 'tis there the monstrous evil lies. Pride makes us stern oppressors o£ our nue— The heart it hardens, and it blinds the eyes, 'Till we become the basest of the base. As long as man is honoured for his gold, : So Ion" will folly and injustice reign, So long will flattery be bought and sold, So long despised the coinage of the brain. To mark the lip with scorn contemptuous curl'd, To bow, to cringe, to stoop, to vainly wait; Judged by the damning verdict of the world, Yet dread to murmur, is the poor man's fate. Alas! for charity—'tis spurn'd and frown'd Away-and has been since the world %vas new; Search if thou wilt, the thing itself is found As seldom in the pulpit as the pew. What will avail the best, the purest creed, Or those immortal truths 'tis framed to teach, If men leave men to perish in their need, And hate to practice what they love to preach. We have more creeds than Christians, more pretence Than virtue, more fine words than noble deeds, More faith ia cunning than in Providence, And where sweet flowers should bloom we grow but weeds.