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They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts
To know what they must do; their wisdom is
To look into the eyes of others, thence
To be instructed what they must avoid:
Or rather let us say, how least observed,
How with most quiet and most silent death,
With the least taint and injury to the air
The Oppressor breathes, their human Form divine,
And their immortal Soul, may waste away."
The Sage rejoined, "I thank you—you have spared
My voice the utterance of a keen regret,
A wide compassion which with you I share.
When, heretofore, I placed before your sight
A most familiar object of our days,
A Little-one, subjected to the Arts
Of modern ingenuity, and made
The senseless member of a vast machine,
Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel;
Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget
The rustic Boy, who walks the fields, untaught;
The Slave of ignorance, and oft of want,
And miserable hunger. Much too much
