Poverty, why wast thou born...

Poverty, why wast thou born

In the world's earliest morn?

Why hast thou lived all the years,

Sowing thy pains and thy tears?

Roaming about thou art seen,

Crooked, decrepit, and lean;

Travelling all the world through —

Suffering's “wandering Jew.”

Thin and unkempt is thy hair,

Fleshless as parchment thy cheek,

Sad and ungainly thine air,

Hollow the words thou dost speak,

Bony and grasping thy hand,

Dreary thy days in the land.

Poverty, why wast thou born

Under the world's quiet scorn?

Poverty, thou hast been seen

Clad in a comelier mien.

Oft, to the clear-seeing eyes,

Thou art a saint in disguise.

Discipline rich thou hast brought,

Lessons of labor and thought.

Oft, in thy dreariest night,

Virtue gleams sturdy and bright;

Oft, from thy scantiest hour,

Grow the beginnings of power;

Oft,‘ mongst thy squalors and needs

Live such magnificent deeds

As the proud angels will crown

There in their gold-streeted town;

Oft, from thy high garrets, throng

Notes of magnificent song,

That, from sad day unto day,

Float through the ages away.

Poverty — brave or forlorn —

God knoweth why thou wast born.