Is this a holy thing to see, In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine. And their fields are bleak and bare. And their ways are filled with thorns. It is eternal winter there. For where-e’er the sun does shine, And where-e’er the rain does fall: Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appal.
FROM: Songs of Experience, 1794