Poems (Cook)/A Song for the Ragged Schools

by Eliza Cook

A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOLS.

To work, to work! ye good and wise,
 Let "ragged" scholars grace your schools;
Ere Christian children can arise,
 They must be train'd by Christian rules.

We ask no fragrance from the bud
 Where canker-vermin feeds and reigns;
We seek no health-pulse in the blood
 Where poison runneth in the veins.

And can we hope that harvest fruits
 In desert bosoms can be grown;
That palms and vines will fix their roots
 Where only briers have been sown?

Man trains his hound with watchful care,
 Before he trusts him in the chase;
Man keeps his steed on fitting fare,
 Before he tries him in the race;

And yet he thinks, the human soul,
 A meagre, fierce, and untaught thing,
Shall heed the written Law's control,
 And soar on Reason's steady wing.

Oh, they who aid not by their gold,
 Or voice, or deed, the helpless ones;
They who, with reckless brain, withhold
 Truth's sunshine from our lowly sons;

Shall they be blameless—when the guilt
 Of rude and savage hands is known;
When crime is wrought and blood is spilt—
 Shall the poor sinner stand alone!

Dare we condemn the hearts we leave
 To grope their way in abject gloom;
Yet conscious that we help to weave
 The shroud-fold of Corruption's loom?

Shall we send forth the poor and stark,
 All rudderless on stormy seas;
And yet expect their spirit-bark
 To ride out every tempest breeze?

Shall we with dim short-sighted eyes,
 Look on their forms of kindred clay;
And dare to trample and despise
 Our sharers in a "judgment day"?

Oh, narrow, blind, and witless preachers!
 Do we expect the "ragged" band
To be among Earth's perfect creatures,
 While we refuse the helping hand?

To work, to work! with hope and joy,
 Let us be doing what we can;
Better build schoolrooms for "the boy,"
 Than cells and gibbets for "the man."

To work, to work! ye rich and wise,
 Let "ragged" children claim your care,
Till those who yield Crime's jackal cries
 Have learn'd the tones of peace and prayer.