Where fever and famine are rife;
Where never one soul has arisen,
Where myriads go down in the strife.
Where the black wing of death scarcely hovers,
Lest its jesters should make him unclean;
And the soft fleecy clouds hurry over,
To shut out God’s sun from the scene.
Where the light of God’s orb would be stricken,
With shame as it passed in the sky,
To look in the cells where we sicken,