The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

Slum Children

(From “Songs of Joy”)

By William H. Davies

(See page [577])

Your songs at night a drunkard sings,

Stones, sticks and rags your daily flowers;

Like fishes’ lips, a bluey white,

Such lips, poor mites, are yours.

Poor little things, so sad and solemn,

Whose lives are passed in human crowds—

When in the water I can see

Heaven with a flock of clouds.

Poor little mites that breathe foul air,

Where garbage chokes the sink and drain—

Now when the hawthorn smells so sweet,

Wet with the summer rain.

But few of ye will live for long;

Ye are but small new islands seen,

To disappear before your lives

Can grow and be made green.