THE BITTER CRY OF THE OUTCAST POOR. MAN.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 1

THE BITTER CRY OF THE OUTCAST POOR.

MAN.

" Alms 1 Arc we beggars ? Xav— we ask no dole Wrung from jour bounty;— the clown-trodden soul Secksjusticc-not a jpfl — Rights, all her own — JCot a pour pittance, in compassion thrown, A sop to Cerberus -whence comes the claim Tliat some should draw from life, wealth, titles. fame. Winning their gains through, fickle Fortune's tricks, liecaus- her loaded Oicc give double six, Earth's pampered dai lings, spoilt, caressed, refined. Lords of whate'er may gladden heart or mind, No wish ungratified, no.iqys unknown. Whilst we— ah well we live— who shall atone For the deep wiong called life ? To us it brings But hopeless toil, no shred of better things Falls to our Io\ — ' tis weary ondloss toil In dreary mill, or on the alien soil ; Alien, yet \\ hy / Have we not too the right To till God's earth and draw thence our delight? Must it be all another's? walled and barred By deeds a:id ancient muniments. Hard, hard Our lot, who only look at last to have Six feet of leasehold tenure-for a grave. Talk of your legal rights, your charters flaunt ; Justice is greater still- see'st how we want AH. save the right to draw untaxed our breath, And live a life, whose only joy is death ? We too have Rights, deny them whoso can. The Rights that centre in the name of man ; The Right to labour for our own and home, To lay up store ere the dark days shall come When strength and health and skill depart, and wo Stand dim eyed, gazing o'er t'fe wondrous scad That laves the shore whence none, who reach, return— Death's stern, mysterious, nnavoided bourne. Oh earth in all thy beauty hear our prayer. Bid its words * ibrate through the answering air, Touch the stern rule of life and let new light Shine in the ej es of men to see the right. And yet, the murmurous thunder grandly rolls Through the dark waste, of heaven, so o'er our souls, Flashing new hope I?—their1 ?— their lightning gleams— a voice Upvprbcrat 'S, in echoes that rejoice Our outcast iive3. the fateful tones resound Far and n_. with no uncertain sound, — Freedom <>hall y< tbe ours— we arise To claim our bi'thright, 'neatn our native skies. Rights long denied be gained - a fuller life Shine c'en for us, with larger powers rife. Awake, arise, in ranks divinely drawn March onwards, where with soft, full flush of flawn The better day upriscth in its might When men shall recognise the force of right, And .f twice o'or the earth with power dvvino, Ixmglost and hidden, through the future shine." Auckland, 183 G. Eos.

What a qneer combination of cheek and perversity. Insolence pride, gab. impudence, vanity, Jealo-y, nat», acorn, baseness. insanity, Honour, triuh, wisdom, viituo. urbanity. Is that whim ieal bipod called man ! Who can fathom the depth of his innate depravity ? To-djy ho'a all gaiety, to mor-ow all gravity F<u blowing his own horn he ha 3 a propenEven under clouds of singular density O ! rajß^ical clay-bank called nian ! He can bo the atrnrce of beastly brutality Be modoat antl moefe. or indnl(?e in hilarity 1 >on airs and graces of saintly totality ' Or equn.l the doyil in daring r&pcality This curious enigma called man.

"Famiiy comforts" have jnefc been defined by a minister as "shirt buttons, good coffee and that sort of thing." If the definition be sound, there never was a more comfortless asre than the present. Shirt buttons have departed, good coffee is going, and " that port of tning" ie the exception rather than the rule,