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Invisible Children

Invisible Children

Their mothers can see them, but to us they’re invisible
These fate-cursed little creatures with long lashed, limpid eyes
In the poor part of town where hunger is permissible
Empty cupboards are opened with sad, hopeless sighs

Yes, we glimpse them occasionally, when famine strikes other nations
We see them on TV, broadcast from strange sounding lands
Hunger’s a democratic denizen, sparing no child it’s sensations
And welcomes our own crying children into it’s cold callous hands

Submission into malnutrition is the chronic condition
These hidden, unseen children must confront every day
Sentenced by hunger to a living perdition
On their mom’s leaden heart, these cruel conditions heavily weigh

While most of us worry about our kids overeating
About high fructose content, roughage and such
These kids, with ribs like infantile armatures, arms outstretched and pleading

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poem by David Whalen
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The Eclipse

‘My thoughts are often consumed by death
And the dark side of the Moon, '
I said to Jane as she sensed my pain
On that Sunday afternoon,
We'd sat through the morning sermon
Of the Tempting on the Mount,
‘The Devil is often abroad, ' she said,
‘More times than we can count! '

‘Yet God is the infinite mystery,
He never has shown himself,
He doesn't swoop down to rescue us
Or curb the excess of wealth! '
I said there were so many questions
That had led me into doubt,
But Jane, the waif, had a simple faith
And she turned me inside out.

‘Look at the trees and bushes here
And the way they propagate,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 3. Interlude IV.

'A pleasant and a winsome tale,'
The Student said, 'though somewhat pale
And quiet in its coloring,
As if it caught its tone and air
From the gray suits that Quakers wear;
Yet worthy of some German bard,
Hebel, or Voss, or Eberhard,
Who love of humble themes to sing,
In humble verse; but no more true
Than was the tale I told to you.'
The Theologian made reply,
And with some warmth, 'That I deny;
'T is no invention of my own,
But something well and widely known
To readers of a riper age,
Writ by the skilful hand that wrote
The Indian tale of Hobomok,
And Philothea's classic page.
I found it like a waif afloat
Or dulse uprooted from its rock,

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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To Heavy Hearts

HEAVY hearts, your jubilee
Droops about the Christmas Tree.
Sudden sighs cut off the laughter,
For a haunting pain comes after
All your gallant glee,
— Pain for your soldiers far away to-night,
(O cloud that darkens on the Christmas star!)
Sons, husbands, those who wreathed your world with light,
Far, far, so far.
Be comforted! They never were so near.
In life's deep center of self-sacrifice
You meet with vision clear.
There in love's purest paradise
The touch of soul on soul is close and dear.
Not to-night shall soft cheeks glow
Where the Druid mistletoe
Weaves its charm, while hollies twinkle;
For the lads in some grim wrinkle
Of the earth crouch low.
Hard is their Christmas in the aching trench,

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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Hymn For a Lasting Peace

The world needs a lasting peace if man is to survive:
Let nation not fight nation,
Let race not conquer race,
Let the strong not commit invasion,
Let all men share Earth's grace.
Ban aggression of any kind,
Ban all arms production,
Ban man's violence against mankind,
Ban all forms of destruction.
It is for a lasting peace that man has got to strive.

The world needs a lasting peace if man is to survive:
To save the snow capped mountains,
To save the depths of the seas,
To save the springs and fountains,
To save the birds and the bees;
That farms and forests flourish,
That rivers and streams flow pure,
That fields give life and nourish,
That Earth's great seasons endure.

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poem by Pauline D'Roza
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Moss on a Wall

Dim dreams it hath of singing ways,
Of far-off woodland water-heads,
And shining ends of April days
Amongst the yellow runnel-beds.

Stoop closer to the ruined wall,
Whereon the wilful wilding sleeps,
As if its home were waterfall
By dripping clefts and shadowy steeps.

A little waif, whose beauty takes
A touching tone because it dwells
So far away from mountain lakes,
And lily leaves, and lightening fells.

Deep hidden in delicious floss
It nestles, sister, from the heat -
A gracious growth of tender moss
Whose nights are soft, whose days are sweet.

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poem by Henry Kendall
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The Rock-Tomb Of Bradore

A DREAR and desolate shore!
Where no tree unfolds its leaves,
And never the spring wind weaves
Green grass for the hunter's tread;
A land forsaken and dead,
Where the ghostly icebergs go
And come with the ebb and flow
Of the waters of Bradore!

A wanderer, from a land
By summer breezes fanned,
Looked round him, awed, subdued,
By the dreadful solitude,
Hearing alone the cry
Of sea-birds clanging by,
The crash and grind of the floe,
Wail of wind and wash of tide.
'O wretched land!' he cried,
'Land of all lands the worst,
God forsaken and curst!

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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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A Pregnant Lass

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp'ry slope -
She casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
And stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
The stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

Well, Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
"The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
Where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
Where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
Whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood are spattered on the spire;
Though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer."

Though broken there, she's fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she's dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
With child, unwed, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,

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poem by Terry O'Leary
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Footfalls

The embers were blinking and clinking away,
The casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the threshold alone!

And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
'I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a wanderer still!'

And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
'There are memories moaning and homeless to-night
That can never be tranquil again!'

And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a flutter and sigh to the eaves,
'They are wrinkled and wasted, and tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves.'

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poem by Henry Kendall
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Hail! Childish Slave Of Social Rules

HAIL! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it worth the shaking.
I see, and pity you; and then
Go, casting off the idle pity,
In search of better, braver men,
My own way freely through the city.

My own way freely, and not yours;
And, careless of a town's abusing,
Seek real friendship that endures
Among the friends of my own choosing.
I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?
And won't let Mrs. Grundy do it,
Tho' all I honour and hold dear
And all I hope should move me to it.

I take my old coat from the shelf -
I am a man of little breeding.

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poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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