If I am poor, It is that I am proud; If God has made me naked and a boor, He did not think it fit his work to shroud.
The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth, As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams; The rich receives in our gross air his birth, As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.
Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite, Unless our earth and moon that office hold; Though his perpetual day feareth no night, And his perennial summer dreads no cold.
Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend; If I no partial wealth appropriate, No armèd ships unto the Indies send, None robs me of my Orient estate.
"Have you not seen, In ancient times, Pilgrims pass by Toward other climes, With shining faces, Youthful and strong, Mounting this hill With speech and with song?"
"Ah, my good sir, I know not those ways; Little my knowledge, Tho' many my days. When I have slumbered, I have heard sounds As of travelers passing These my grounds.
"'T was a sweet music Wafted them by, I could not tell If afar off or nigh. Unless I dreamed it, This was of yore: I never told it To mortal before, Never remembered But in my dreams What to me waking A miracle seems."
In this roadstead I have ridden, In this covert I have hidden; Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me, And I hid beneath their lee.
This true people took the stranger, And warm-hearted housed the ranger; They received their roving guest, And have fed him with the best;
Whatsoe'er the land afforded To the stranger's wish accorded; Shook the olive, stripped the vine, And expressed the strengthening wine.
And by night they did spread o'er him What by day they spread before him;-- That good-will which was repast Was his covering at last.
The stranger moored him to their pier Without anxiety or fear; By day he walked the sloping land, By night the gentle heavens he scanned.
When first his bark stood inland To the coast of that far Finland, Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore The weary mariner to restore.
And still he stayed from day to day If he their kindness might repay; But more and more The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.
And still the more the stranger waited, The less his argosy was freighted, And still the more he stayed, The less his debt was paid.