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Title: Pride And Poverty
Author: John S. Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
I CANNOT brook the proud. I cannot love
The selfish man; he seems to have no heart;
And why he lives and moves upon this earth
Which God has made so fair, I cannot tell.
He has no soul but that within his purse,
And all his hopes are centred on its fate;
That lost, and all is lost.
I knew a man
Who had abundant riches. He was proud,--
Too oft the effect of riches when abused,--
His step was haughty, and his eye glanced at
The honest poor as base intruders on
The earth he trod and fondly called his own;
Unwelcome guests at Nature's banqueting.
Years passed away,--that youth became a man;
His beetled brow, his sullen countenance,
His eye that looked a fiery command,
Betrayed that his ambition was to rule.
He smiled not, save in scorn on humble men,
Whom he would have bow down and worship him.
Thus with his strength his pride did grow, until
He did become aristocrat indeed.
The humble beggar, whose loose rags scarce gave
Protection to him from the cold north wind,
He scarce would look upon, and vainly said,
As in his hand he held the ready coin,
"No mortal need be poor,--'t is his own fault
If such he be;--if he court poverty,
Let all its miseries be his to bear."
'T is many years since he the proud spake thus,
And men and things have greatly changed since then.
No more in wealth he rolls,--men's fortunes change.
I met a lonely hearse, slowly it passed
Toward the church-yard. 'T was unattended
Save by one old man, and he the sexton.
With spade beneath his arm he trudged along,
Whistling a homely tune, and stopping not.
He seemed to be in haste, for now and then
He'd urge to quicker pace his walking beast,
With the rough handle of his rusty spade.
Him I approached, and eagerly inquired
Whose body thus was borne so rudely to
Its final resting-place, the deep, dark grave.
"His name was Albro," was the prompt reply.
"Too proud to beg, we found him starved to death,
In a lone garret, which the rats and mice
Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy.
An' I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once
He deemed too poor and low to look upon,
Am come to bury him."
The sexton smiled,--
Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag,
Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along.
Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand
To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,--
But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled.
The truth flashed in an instant on my mind,
Though sad, yet deep, unchanging truth to me.
'T was he, thus borne, who, in his younger days,
Blest with abundance, used it not aright.
He, who blamed the poor because they were such;
Behold his end!-too proud to beg, he died.
A sad example, teaching all to shun
The rock on which he shipwrecked,--warning take,
That they too fall not as he rashly fell.
[The end]
John S. Adams's poem: Pride And Poverty
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