Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/108

 whose joys and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings

Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be where others swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime. Outlawed criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cold, blameless citizens of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of evil is quenched; but also the power of good. I have seen women on whose cheeks red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity.

London

(English poet and painter of strange and terrible visions. 1757-1827)

I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow; A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry Every blackening church appals, And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood down palace-walls.