Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOILING CHILDREN, by NELLIE H. EVANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOILING CHILDREN, by                    
First Line: The prey of greed and cruel industry
Last Line: An ample chance to play, to grow and learn.
Subject(s): Babies; Cruelty; Labor & Laborers; Infants; Work; Workers


The prey of greed and cruel industry
They go -- the toiling children of our land;
With burdens on their shoulders feebly borne,
And daylight turned to darkness in their lives;
A vast recruit of starving souls within
The grind and whirl of Labor's racking wheel,
Within the grasp of want and prodding care,
The victims of unhappy circumstance.

The infant workers wend their weary way,
Where older feet would pause and shrink to go,
They grope in blind uncertainty and yield
To heartless masters who exact their toil.
The heel of iron treads onward o'er their hearts,
The roar of mart stills all their lonely cries,
The curse of gold absorbs their tender years,
And stifles their young joy and innocence.
And human creatures passing by heed not
Their bitter wail; see not those little forms
So worn and wan; those sunken faces pale
And marked by age ere childhood's bloom is known.
They answer not those words of keen rebuke,
"Whence comes our rest? Where is our Father's house?
And where His love for little children sent?
We would believe but grief has made us doubt,
We look for light but tears have made us blind."

The world gives welcome to the beauteous morn,
And greets the quickened hope and springing life;
The birds in joyous song, the lambs at play,
And creatures free from care and unrestrained.
And yet the little children in distress,
In weariness and pain, unheeded go
Their saddened way; their cry so faint and weak,
Is spent and dumb ere Christian hearts are moved.

Who has the right to thus deform and maim
God's little ones? to rob them of their play?
To stun and make inanimate their lives
And turn their birthright into hardened clay?
What nation just and Christian can endure
Such infamy? Can thus afford to stand
A prodigal in waste and ruin of life?
O land -- our land! O country of the free!
Give back the childhood marred in mines and mills,
Snatch from the crippling paths and perils grim,
The toiling children -- future citizens.
No longer look upon this flagrant shame;
The sapping of young life and blunting force,
O grant to every child that looks to thee
An ample chance to play, to grow and learn.





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