Withheld his harvest, or the thousand ills
That throng the hard lot of the sons of toil
Drank up his spirit. Ye indeed may hold
His form incarcerate, but will that repair
The trespass on your purse? To take away
The means of labor, yet require the fruits
Savoreth, methinks, of Pharaoh's policy.
Doth Themis sanction what the code of Christ
Condemns? "How readest thou?" Are there, who deem
The smallest[1] portion of their drossy gold
Full counterpoise for liberty and health,
And God's free air, and home's sweet charities?
'Mid the gay circle round their evening fire
Sit they in luxury, while warbled song,
And guest, and wine-cup speed the flying hours,
Unmindful of the prison'd one who droops
Within his close barr'd cell, or of the storm
That hoarsely round his distant dwelling sweeps,
Where she who in a lowly bed hath laid
Her famish'd babes, kneels shivering at their side,
Mingling the tear-gush with her lonely prayer?
—Revenge may draw a subsidy from pain,
Wringing stern usury from woman's woe,
And infancy's distress; but is it well
For souls that hasten to a dread account
Of motive and of deed at Heaven's high bar,
To break their Saviour's law?
- ↑ Among the facts embodied in the deeply interesting Reports of the "Prison Discipline Society," it is related that in the city of Baltimore alone, during the year 1829, seven hundred and twelve persons suffered imprisonment for debts under the sum of twenty dollars; that in Philadelphia, during a period of fifteen months, five hundred and eighty-four were imprisoned for sums lower than five dollars, and that one man for a debt of two cents, lay in prison thirty-two days.
