Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land,-- Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous 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 son does never shine, And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are filled 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 appall.