XXI.
We grant their class must labor—young and old;
We grant the child the needy parents' tool:
But still our hearts a better plan behold;
No bright Utopia of some dreaming fool,
But rationally just, and good by rule.
Not against Toil, but Toil's Excess we pray,
(Else were we nursed in Folly's simplest school)
That so our country's hardy children may
Learn not to loathe, but bless, the well apportioned day.
XXII.
One more reply! The last reply—the great
Answer to all that sense or feeling shows,
To which all others are subordinate:—
"The Masters of the Factories must lose
By the abridgment of these infant woes.
Show us the remedy which shall combine
Our equal gain with their increased repose—
Which shall not make our trading class repine,
But to the proffered boon its strong effects confine."
XXIII.
Oh! shall it then be said that Tyrant acts
Are those which cause our country's looms to thrive?
That Merchant England's prosperous trade exacts
This bitter sacrifice, e'er she derive
That profit due, for which the feeble strive?
Is her commercial avarice so keen,
That in her busy, multitudinous hive
Hundreds must die like insects, scarcely seen,
While the thick-thronged survivors work where they have been?
