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SELECTIONS FROM BLAKE'S WRITINGS.
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with a cold usurious hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy,
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak and bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appal.
