XXI

Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent.—

      What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest?

Your hands have worked well. Is your courage spent

      In handwork only? Have you nothing best,

Which generous souls may perfect and present,

      And He shall thank the givers for? No light

Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor,

      Who sit in darkness when it is not night?

No cure for wicked children? Christ,—no cure!

      No help for women sobbing out of sight

Because men made the laws? No brothel-lure

      Burnt out by popular lightnings?—Hast thou found

No remedy, my England, for such woes?

No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound,

No entrance for the exiled? No repose,

      Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground,

And gentle ladies bleached among the snows?—

      No mercy for the slave, America?—

No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France?—

      Alas, great nations have great shames, I say.

No pity, O world, no tender utterance

      Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way

To poor Italia baffled by mischance?—

      O gracious nations, give some ear to me!

You all go to your Fair, and I am one

      Who at the roadside of humanity

Beseech your alms,—a justice to be done.

      So, prosper!