Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see
     In a rich and fruitful land,—
   Babes reduced to misery,
     Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
     Can it be a song of joy?
   And so many children poor?
     It is a land of poverty!

And their son does never shine,
     And their fields are bleak and bare,
   And their ways are filled with thorns:
     It is eternal winter there.

For where’er the sun does shine,
     And where’er the rain does fall,
   Babes should never hunger there,
     Nor poverty the mind appall.