C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Poverty
By Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886)
O
Embrowned by wholesome toils in lusty air;
Whose clear blood, nurtured by strong primitive cheer,
Through Amazonian veins flowed unafraid.
Broad-breasted, pearly-teethed, thy pure breath strayed,
Sweet as deep-uddered kine’s curled in the rare
Bright spaces of thy lofty atmosphere,
O’er some rude cottage in a fir-grown glade.
Now, of each brave ideal virtue stripped,
O Poverty! I behold thee as thou art,—
A ruthless hag, the image of woeful dearth,
Of brute despair, gnawing its own starved heart.
Thou ravening wretch! fierce-eyed and monster-lipped,
Why scourge forevermore God’s beauteous earth?