Our National Sinews; or, a word on, to, and for the working classes

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Page 46 - O men with Sisters dear ! O men with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch - stitch - stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once with a double thread, A Shroud as well as a Shirt.
Page 47 - WITH fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread, — • Stitch— stitch— stitch ! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt!
Page 47 - Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet; For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal.
Page 46 - Work, work, work! From weary chime to chime ; Work, work, work, As prisoners work for crime : Band and gusset and seam, Seam and gusset and band, Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, As well as the weary hand.
Page 45 - With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread — Stitch — stitch — stitch ! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, — Would that its tone could reach the Rich ! She sang this " Song of the Shirt !
Page 10 - Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease, Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please; Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share, Go look within, and ask if peace be there; If peace be his — that drooping weary sire, Or theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire; Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand Turns on the wretched hearth th
Page 10 - I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms For him that grazes or for him that farms; But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun with fervid ray On their bare heads and dewy temples play, While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts Deplore their fortune yet sustain their parts, Then shall I dare these real ills to hide In tinsel trappings of poetic pride?
Page 3 - Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay — the lark is gay, That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.
Page 46 - Work ! work ! work ! My labour never flags ; and what are its wages ? A bed of straw, a crust of bread — and rags. That shattered roof and this naked floor, a table, a broken chair, and a wall so blank, my shadow I thank for sometimes falling there.
Page 46 - Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! "Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures

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