Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/226

 We never knew a childhood's mirth and gladness, Nor the proud heart of youth free and brave; Oh, a death-like dream of wretchedness and sadness Is life's weary journey to the grave! Day by day we lower sink, and lower, Till the God-like soul within Falls crushed beneath the fearful demon power Of poverty and sin.

So we toil on, on with fever burning In heart and brain; So we toil on, on through bitter scorning, Want, woe, and pain. We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heavens Or the toil must cease— We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given One hour in peace.

Inequality of Wealth

(See page 193)

I am not bound to keep my temper with an imposture so outrageous, so abjectly sycophantic, as the pretence that the existing inequalities of income correspond to and are produced by moral and physical inferiorities and superiorities—that Barnato was five million times as great and good a man as William Blake, and committed suicide because he lost two-fifths of his superiority; that the life of Lord Anglesey has been on a far higher plane than that of John Ruskin; that Mademoiselle Liane de Pougy has been raised by her successful sugar specula