I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone.
While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth,
I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth.
To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes out—
Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless rout.
In the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled
From the cheeks of pauper maidens forced into the brothel-bed;
In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut
By the iron-hand injustice from the cotter’s humble hut.
Nay, ‘tis wrong that we should range with science glorying in the time,