Page:In Bohemia (1886).djvu/81

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THE CITY STREETS.
75

The earth was not made for its people: that cry has been hounded down as a social crime;
The meaning, of life is to barter and buy; and the strongest and shrewdest are masters of time.
God made the million to serve the few, and their questions of right are vain conceits;
To have one sweet home that is safe and true, ten garrets must reek in the darkened streets.

'Tis Civilization, so they say, and it cannot be changed for the weakness of men.
Take care! take care! 'tis a desperate way to goad the wolf to the end of his den.
Take heed. of your Civilization, ye, on your pyramids built of quivering hearts;
There are stages, like Paris in '93, where the commonest men play most terrible parts.
Your statutes may crush but they cannot kill the patient sense of a natural right;
It may slowly move, but the People's will, like the ocean o'er Holland, is always in sight.
"It is not our fault!" say the rich ones. No; 'tis the fault of a system old and strong;
But men are the makers of systems: so, the cure will come if we own the wrong.