A thousand years have passed amain;
The sands of life are running thin;
Thought is our leader—Thought is vain;
Speech is our goddess—Speech is sin.
II
It needs no thought to understand,
No speech to tell, nor sight to see
That there has come upon our land
The curse of Inactivity.
We do not see the vital point
That 'tis the eighth, most deadly, sin
To wail, "The world is out of joint"—
And not attempt to put it in.
We see the swollen stream of crime
Flow hourly past us, thick and wide;
We gaze with interest for a time,
And pass by on the other side.
We see the tide of human sin
Rush roaring past our very door,
And scarcely one man plunges in
To drag the drowning to the shore.
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