Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Song for the Ragged Schools of London lyrics

I am listening here in Rome
 "England’s strong, " say many speakers
"If she winks, the Czar must come
 Prow and topsail, to the breakers"

"England’s rich in coal and oak, "
 Adds a Roman, getting moody
"If she shakes a travelling cloak
 Down our Appian roll the scudi"

"England’s righteous, " they rejoin:
 "Who shall grudge her exaltations
When her wealth of golden coin
 Works the welfare of the nations?"

I am listening here in Rome
 Over Alps a voice is sweeping
"England’s cruel, save us some
 Of these victims in her keeping!"

As the cry beneath the wheel
 Of an old triumphant Roman
Cleft the people’s shouts like steel
 While the show was spoilt for no man

Comes that voice let others shout
 Other poets praise my land here:
I am sadly sitting out
 Praying, "God forgive her grandeur"

Shall we boast of empire, where
 Time with ruin sit's commissioned?
In God’s liberal blue air
 Peter’s dome it'self looks wizened

And the mountains, in disdain
 Gather back their lights of opal
From the dumb despondent plain
 Heaped with jawbones of a people

Lordly English, think it o’er
 Cæsar’s doing is all undone!
You have cannons on your shore
 And free Parliaments in London

Princes’ parks, and merchants’ homes
 Tents for soldiers, ships for seamen
Ay, but ruins worse than Rome’s
 In your pauper men and women

Women leering through the gas
  (Just such bosoms used to nurse you)
Men, turned wolves by famine pass!
 Those can speak themselves
And curse you

But these others children small
 Spilt like blots about the city
Quay, and street, and palace-wall
 Take them up into your pity!

Ragged children with bare feet
 Whom the angels in white raiment
Know the names of, to repeat
 When they come on you for payment

Ragged children, hungry-eyed
 Huddled up out of the coldness
On your doorsteps, side by side
 Till your footman damns their boldness

In the alleys, in the squares
 Begging, lying little rebels
In the noisy thoroughfares
 Struggling on with piteous trebles

Patient children think what pain
 Makes a young child patient ponder!
Wronged too commonly to strain
 After right, or wish, or wonder

Wicked children, with peaked chins
 And old foreheads! there are many
With no pleasures except sins
 Gambling with a stolen penny

Sickly children, that whine low
 To themselves and not their mothers
From mere habit, never so
 Hoping help or care from others

Healthy children, with those blue
 English eyes, fresh from their Maker
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
 At the brown loaves of the baker

I am listening here in Rome
 And the Romans are confessing
"English children pass in bloom
 All the prettiest made for blessing

"Angli angeli!" (resumed
 From the mediæval story)
"Such rose angelhoods, emplumed
 In such ringlets of pure glory!"

Can we smooth down the bright hair
 O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
Our heart’s pulses? Can we bear
 The sweet looks of our own children

While those others, lean and small
 Scurf and mildew of the city
Spot our streets, convict us all
 Till we take them into pity?

"Is it our fault?" you reply
 "When, throughout civilization
Every nation’s empery
 Is asserted by starvation?

"All these mouths we cannot feed
 And we cannot clothe these bodies"
Well, if man’s so hard indeed
 Let them learn at least what God is!

Little outcasts from life’s fold
 The grave’s hope they may be joined in
By Christ’s covenant consoled
 For our social contract’s grinding

If no better can be done
 Let us do but this, endeavour
That the sun behind the sun
 Shine upon them while they shiver!

On the dismal London flags
 Through the cruel social juggle
Put a thought beneath their rags
 To ennoble the heart’s struggle

O my sisters, not so much
 Are we asked for not a blossom
From our children’s nosegay, such
 As we gave it from our bosom

Not the milk left in their cup
 Not the lamp while they are sleeping
Not the little cloak hung up
 While the coat’s in daily keeping

But a place in Ragged Schools
 Where the outcasts may to-morrow
Learn by gentle words and rules
 Just the uses of their sorrow

O my sisters! children small
 Blue-eyed, wailing through the city
Our own babes cry in them all:
 Let us take them into pity