"
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west--
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow;
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark underground--
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round."
In the country the state of affairs was no better. New systems of
industrial production threw large numbers of farm hands out of work,
the rate of wages fell, and machinery, steam, and the work of women
and children took the place of the labourer.
The children found a champion in Lord Ashley, afterward Lord
Shaftesbury, who succeeded in the face of much opposition in his
efforts to pass laws which should do away with such shameful wrong
and injustice.
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