"The sorrow I might have soothed, And the unregarded tears;
For many a thronging shape was there, From long-forgotten years,- Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, Who raised my childish fears!
"Each pleading look, that long ago I scanned with a heedless eye, Each face was gazing as plainly there As when I passed it by :
Woe, woe for me if the past should be Thus present when I die!
"No need of sulphureous lake, No need of fiery coal,
But only that crowd of human kind
Who wanted pity and dole
In everlasting retrospect
Will wring my sinful soul!
"Alas! I have walked through life Too heedless where I trod;
Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm, And fill the burial sod―
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls Not unmarked of God!
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, Supplied my hungry mood;
But I never remembered the wretched ones
That starve for want of food!
"I dressed as the noble dress,
In cloth of silver and gold,
With silk, and satin, and costly furs, In many an ample fold;
But I never remembered the naked limbs That froze with winter's cold.
"The wounds I might have healed! The human sorrow and smart! And yet it never was in my soul To play so ill a part:
But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart!"
She clasped her fervent hands, And the tears began to stream; Large, and bitter, and fast they fell, Remorse was so extreme,
And yet, O, yet, that many a dame Would dream the Lady's Dream
Who does not hear the tramp Of thousands speeding along Of either sex and various stamp, Sickly, crippled, or strong, Walking, limping, creeping From court, and alley, and lane, But all in one direction sweeping, Like rivers that seek the main ? Who does not see them sally From mill, and garret, and room, In lane, and court, and alley, From homes in poverty's lowest valley, Furnished with shuttle and loom- Poor slaves of Civilization's galley And in the road and footways rally, As if for the day of doom?
Some, of hardly human form,
Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil; Dingy with smoke and dust and oil, And smirched besides with vicious soil, Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. Father, mother, and careful child, Looking as if it had never smiled
The seamstress, lean, and weary, and wan, With only the ghosts of garments on- The weaver, her sallow neighbor, The grim and sooty artisan; Every soulchild, woman, or man, Who lives or dies by labor.
Stirred by an overwhelming zeal, And social impulse, a terrible throng! Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel, Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel, Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel- Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal Gushing, rushing, crushing along,
Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong,
Grown at last to a hurricane strong,
Stop its course who can!
Stop who can its onward course
And irresistible moral force;
O! vain and idle dream!
For surely as men are all akin, Whether of fair or sable skin, According to Nature's scheme, That human movement contains within
A blood-power stronger than steam.
Onward, onward, with hasty feet, They swarm - and westward still Masses born to drink and eat,
But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat, Aud famishing down Cornhill!
Through the Poultry - but still unfed — Christian charity, hang your head! Hungry-passing the Street of Bread; Thirsty the Street of Milk;
Ragged beside the Ludgate mart,
So gorgeous, through mechanic art, With cotton, and wool, and silk!
At last, before that door That bears so many a knock Ere ever it opens to sick or poor, Like sheep they huddle and flock- And would that all the good and wise Could see the million of hollow eyes,
With a gleam derived from hope and the skies, Upturned to the workhouse clock!
U! that the parish powers, Who regulate labor's hours, The daily amount of human trial, Weariness, pain, and self-denial, Would turn from the artificial dial That striketh ten or eleven,
And go, for once, by that older one That stands in the light of Nature's sun,
And takes its time from Heaven'
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