Policy you set at naught, In their traps you'll not be caught, You're too honest to be bought, Bolt and bar the palace-door; Naked truth grows more and more Uncontrolled; You had never yet, I guess, Any praise for bashfulness, You can visit sans court-dress, Hunger and Cold! While the music fell and rose, Where her round of costly woes Fashion strolled, I beheld with shuddering fear Wolves' eyes through the windows peer; Little dream they you are near, Hunger and Cold! Words refuse to sate your maw, Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law Cannot hold: You 're not clogged with foolish pride, But can seize a right denied; Somehow God is on your side, You respect no hoary wrong From the mould You unbury: swords and spears Weaker than your silent years, Let them guard both hall and bower; Through the window you will glower, Patient till your reckoning hour Shall be tolled: Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, Guiltless blood may chance be shed, God has plans man must not spoil, Some to share the wine and oil, We are told: Devil's theories are these, Stifling hope and love and peace, Framed your hideous lusts to please, Hunger and Cold! 1844. Scatter ashes on thy head, Tears of burning sorrow shed, Earth! and be by Pity led To Love's fold; Ere they block the very door And will hush for naught but gore, — Hunger and Cold! THE LANDLORD. WHAT boot your houses and your lands? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard's sands And mock your ownership's pretence. How shall you speak to urge your right, Choked with that soil for which you lust? The bit of clay, for whose delight You grasp, is mortgaged, too; Death might Foreclose this very day in dust. |