Our nation leads the age
But every man is drafted,
The mighty heritage
Into our sap is grafted;
We somewhat know our wives
And know our children's faces
And when old age arrives
We have no resting spaces.

'Tis money makes our friends,
Its want our disconsoling,
Life's sweet endeavor ends
When ends our burden-rolling;
The evening hour is dull,
'Tis sleep or dissipation,
For home life beautiful
We made no preparation.

The poor they know us not;
Our servants haste to leave us;
Our wealth has them forgot,
Their free-born thoughts perceive us;
Our distance they respect,
We are our money's sequels,
Deserting us, select,
They seek their hearty equals.

I think upon a time
The kitchen was our play-house,
The chimney's whitewashed grime
'Twixt air and home, half-way house,
Our orphan bounden maid
The sweetheart that we read to,
And ere compelled to bed,
Her loving lap we fled to.

Her dishes washed, she walked
Into the high folks' sitting;
She and the old cook talked
With mother round the knitting;
Our neighbors did not start
Nor look our “help's” demission,—
It was as if some heart
Played shuttle through condition.

Little we knew that maid
Had source so sentimental:
Her mother was betrayed,
Her father was a gentle.
Wealth does no more allow
Those tender patronages,
And foreign convicts now
Eat all our poor folks' wages.

In outskirt huts I note
The laborer's straight-limbed daughters,
Wild music in their throat,
And leap of mountain waters;
They never seek his door,—
The poor, rich man they border,—
Both poor and rich are poor,
Without a Servant order.

Helpless our lady hears
Her kitchen tales' distresses,
With diamonds in her ears
And only silken dresses,
Untaught with heart to speak,
In nature's sister spirit,
Unto her sex's meek,
Who shall her earth inherit.

What patriotic guild,
Exploiting past condition,
Can match the woman-willed
In wife's or daughter's mission?—
Morgiana to set free,
'Neath Ali Baba's eaves,
Who served the family,
And boiled the Forty Thieves?