As ’tis, they’re blind, they’re corpses,—lifeless, senseless things.
The blind can never sow, and surely never reap;
They cannot edify; their talent they must keep.
If ’twere not for God’s mercy, favour, and free grace,
Their staff of reason ’d snap; they ’d fall prone on their face.240
That staff’s a weapon made for quarrelling and fight;
Then break it up in pieces, man of feeble sight!
That staff was given thee, to help thee on thy way;
With it men’s faces strikest thou, angry, ev’ry day.
What’s this you’re doing, blind ones? What are you about?