Seeing, through its tears refracted, rippling cascades, azure skies;
Skies and birds and flowery meadows made for children wealthy-born,
While God’s outcasts, with their parents, robbed and drudging, live forlorn,
Men in whom the fires of hope have sunk into a sordid spark,
Mothers rearing helpless infants for the brothel’s dawnless dark.
While this world seems far too crowded to provide us work for all,
Acres spread their untilled bosoms, while the nations rise and fall.
Nature’s storehouse, made for all men, is monopolized by some,
Robbing labor of its produce, making almshouse, jail, and slum.
Side by side with art and progress creeps the haggard spectre, Want—