A GRAND OLD POEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1006, 11 March 1871, Page 22

A GRAND OLD POEM.

Who 9hall judge a man from manners ? Who shall know him by bia dress ? Paupers may be fit for princes, Princes fit for something less ; Crumpled shirt and dirty jacket May beclothe the golden ore Of the deepest thought and feelingSatin vests could do no more. There are springs of crystal nectar Ever welling out of stone ; There are purple buds and golden, Hidden, crushed, and overgrown : God, who counts by souls, not dresses, Loves and prospers you and me, While He values thrones the highest, But as pebbles in the sea. Man, upraised above his fellows, Oft forgets his fellows then ; Masters, rulers, lords, remember That your meanest hinds are men ; Men by honour, men by feeling,! Men by thought, and men by fame ; Claiming equal rights to sunshine In a man's ennobling name. There are foam-embroidered oceans, There are little weed-clad rills ; There are feeble inch-high saplings, There are cedars on the hills ; God, who counts by souls, not stations, Loves and prospers you and me, For to Him all famed distinctions Are as pebbles in the sea. Toiling hands alone are builders Of a nation's wealth or fame ; Titled laziness is pensioned, Fed and fattened on the same ; By the sweat of other's foreheads Living only to rejoice, While the poor man's outraged freedom Vainly lif teth up its voice. Truth and justice are eternal, Bom with loveliness and light ; Secret wrongs shall never prosper While there is a sunny right : God, whose world-heard voice is singing Boundless love to you and me, Sinks oppression,, with its titles, As the pebbles in the sea.