The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier/The Poor Voter on Election Day
THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man’s common sense
Against the pedant’s pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there ’s a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon ’s vilest dust,—
While there ’s a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man ’s a man to-day!