ghts,
And deck the body with insipid show;
When they who are not would be great and high;
And, if their fortune doth not bear them on
With the incessant speed they seek, then fraud
Is called to aid, until the bubble bursts,
Because the pressure is beyond the means;
And they are cast, in anguish and despair,
Unto the depths of ruin, there to lie
With jeers of many pouring on to them.
Unto the speech these times give slippery words,
And to the tongue alike a flattering robe;
That falsehood seems like unto sacred truth,
And enmities the bonds of friendship seem.
O rife Perfidity! O Vanity!
O Pride! Great are thy ravages among
This simple race, who for a lucre strive,
And pomp, and gain, with an unquenched thirst;
Whose hand is avaricious, and who hold
No check upon it; but, to swell their store
In overflowing barns, do from the poor
Extort unjust and utmost usury,
Nor scruple have to snatch the morsel from
The widow's mouth, or leave the orphan bare.
When kings and rulers do for glory pant,
Till thousands of their fellow mortals fall,
In dead or wounded, at a single blow
Laid prostrate, thus to feed their evil lust,
Their satiate thirst which can no limit know.
Or it may be for one's offended pride,
Or some imagined insult to avenge
With the outpouring of a people's blood.
Oh! it doth seem an awful thing indeed
That the wild demon should so rage in man,
And that the learning of the present age
Should not advance his wisdom more than now;
But that, with vengeance rising from his path,
He should in heedless haste go driving on
To the dark pits of torture called "Hell."
Arise, ye slothful people! ye who live
In the soft ways of luxury and ease;
Awake and sit in mooted ease no more,
But count the stern realities of life.
Ye who in drowsy slumber have destroyed,
Have slept all these fair golden hours away,
Whose footprints are inscribed upon thy brow,
Think of the marks of sin against thy name,
And say if no reproach doth sting thy soul.
For why was man created? I may deem
It were for nobler purpose than to waste--
To sin and loll in idleness away--
The only life which he shall ever live,
Save in the long and last eternity.
Cast idle sloth and sinfulness away,
All ye who are the people; and, methinks,
When that is done, I see a nobler race
Begin to crown the land with joy and love,
And tranquil, sweet, and fair prosperity.
Power is supreme, and power in unity
Is thine, renown to give or keep,