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46 Of earthly peace, when near his dwelling's door The frightful waves are driven,—when his son Is murdered by the tyrant, or religion Drives his wife raving mad. But the poor man, Whose life is misery, and fear, and care; Whom the morn wakens but to fruitless toil; Who ever hears his famished offsprings scream, Whom their pale mother's uncomplaining gaze For ever meets, and the proud rich man's eye Flashing command, and the heart-breaking scene Of thousands like himself;—he little heeds The rhetoric of tyranny; his hate Is quenchless as his wrongs; he laughs to scorn The vain and bitter mockery of words, Feeling the horror of the tyrant's deeds, And unrestrained, but by the arm of power, That knows and dreads his enmity.

The iron rod of penury still compels Her wretched slave to bow the knee to wealth, And poison, with unprofitable toil, A life too void of solace to confirm The very chains that bind him to his doom. Nature, impartial in munificence, Has gifted man with all-subduing will. Matter, with all its transitory shapes, Lies subjected and plastic at his feet, That, weak from bondage, tremble as they tread. How many a rustic Milton has past by, Stifling the speechless longings of his heart, In unremitting drudgery and care!