Ye thoughtless great, with supercilious eye
Daily who pass the naked wanderer by,
Who grudge one mite of that enormous store
You idly squander, to the shivering poor,
How can you talk of sympathies resin'd,
The liberal spirit and the extensive mind?
Oh! witness heav'n! with heart and door unshut,
The labouring hind that shrinks into his hut,
Whose latch the mendicant may freely raise,
Nor for the little alms exhaust his praise,
More virtue oft, more native honour knows
Than Grandeur strutting in his birth-day clothes.
I see him, having prest his homely fare,
Pursue some cherish'd trav'ler with a pray'r,
And thank in secret the indulgent sky,
That gave him pow'r to wipe the weeping eye.

Cherubic Charity , how soft a show'r
Of balm benign thy silent favours pour,
In the dark dungeon how thy presence charms,
Aims the fond hope, the blighted project warms,
Pervades, with open hand, the sorrowing earth,
And to misfortune lends the laugh of mirth;
In thy most winning, most resistless mien,
Thou deign'st to visit the sequester'd scene,
There the sick couch from ruder blast defend,
And art it's best physician and its Friend!

Nor deem that P ENURY can ne'er invade,
With sharpest anguish, the forbidden shade:
A weak surmise! mid wintery snows severe,
Her bleakest residence is often there.
Where in that marshy desert far away
The rushlight flings it's intermitting ray,
With sickness leagu'd, from Pity's eye remov'd,
Her pangs, and speechless agonies are prov'd!
On the damp clay, or scanty straw reclin'd,
With scarce a tatter'd cov'ring from the wind,
There, fever-struck, a S IRE delirious-lies,
There with convulsive gasp, a M OTHER dies,
Unheard, ascends the miserable cry,
And fainting sob, of famish'd I NFANCY .