THE TWO ESTATES.
The children of the rich old man no carking care they know,
Like lilies in the sunshine how beautiful they grow!
And well may they be beautiful; in raiment of the best,
In velvet, gold, and ermine, their little forms are drest.
With a hat and jaunty feather set lightly on their head,
And golden hair, like angels’ locks, over their shoulders spread.
And well may they be beautiful; they toil not, neither spin,
Nor dig, nor delve, nor do they ought their daily bread to win.
They eat from gold and silver all luxuries wealth can buy;
They sleep on beds of softest down, in chambers rich and high.
They dwell in lordly houses, with gardens round about,
And servants to attend them if they go in or out.
They have music for the hearing, and pictures for the eye,
And exquisite and costly things each sense to gratify.
No wonder they are beautiful! and if they chanceto die,
Among dead lords and ladies, in the chancel vault they lie.
With marble tablets on the wall inscribed, that all may know,
The children of the rich man are mouldering below.
The children of the poor man, around the humble doors
They throng of city alleys and solitary moors.
In hot and noisy factories they turn the ceaseless wheel,
And eat with feeble appetite their coarse and joyless meal.
They rise up in the morning, ne’er dreaming of delight;
And weary, spent, and heart-sore, they go to bed at night.
They have no brave apparel, with golden clasp and gem;
So their clothes keep out the weather they’re good enough for them.
Their hands are broad and horny; they hunger, and are cold;
They learn what toil and sorrow mean ere they are five years old.
—The poor man’s child must step aside if the rich man’s child go by;
And scarcely aught may minister to his little vanity.
And of what could he be vain?—his most beautiful array
Is what the rich man’s children have worn and cast away.
The finely spun, the many-hued, the new, are not for him,
He must clothe himself, with thankfulness, in garments soiled and dim.
He sees the children of the rich in chariots gay go by,
And “what a heavenly life is their’s,” he sayeth with a sigh.
Then straightway to his work he goeth, for feeble though he be,
His daily toil must still be done to help the family.
Thus live the poor man’s children; and if they chance to die,
In plain, uncostly coffins, ’mong common graves they lie;
Nor monument nor head-stone their humble names declare:—
But thou, O God, wilt not forget the poor man’s children there!