IF A MAN MAY NOT EAT NEITHER CAN HE WORK.
How can he work? He never has been taught
The free use of what faculties he had.
Why should he work? Who ever yet has thought
To give a love of working to the lad.
How can he work? His life has felt the lack
Of all that makes us work; the proud, the free,
Each saying to the world, “I give you back
Part of the glory you have given me!”
Why should he work? He has no honor high,
Born of great trust and wealth and sense of power;
Honor, that makes us yearn before we die
To add our labor to the world’s rich dower.
How can he work? He has no inner strength
Urging him on to action, no desire
To strain and wrestle, to achieve at length,
Burning in all his veins,—a hidden fire.
Why should he work? There is no debt behind
That man’s nobility most longs to pay;
No claim upon him,—only the one blind
Brute instinct that his dinner lies that way.
And that is not enough. Who may not eat
Freely at life’s full table all his youth,
Can never work in power and joy complete,
In fulness, and in honor, and in truth.