The Refugee
(Continued.)
(Continued.)I told these things to Markov: wearilyHe said: "Your land is an anomalyOf good and bad. I know that from these heartsOf poor as of the rich not quite departsAll love I know that justice still may dwellIn those whose hands have wrought a human hell!Mankind is not two races! all alikeHear with a quickened heart the moment strikeWhen death comes summoning them! and if the poorGrow to be rich the evils still endure,Nor do the exalted remember their own fateWhen once they cursed the rich with fervid hate.This land beyond all others is endowedWith wealth unmeasured: like a fruit-tree bowedWith its own fruit the branches often break;And as the farmers oft for fodder takeThe fruit that grows too amply, and know not meanwhileHow those same apples would win the joyous smileOf hot-browed children in the city streetWho perish for the broiling stones and heatThat trembles like a haze within the air, So your own land too prodigally may bearAnd yet be full of starving.
“But my fate Stresses too much perchance and makes too great The fact of wealth! ’Tis not by bread alone That men may live, and often from a groan Has sprung a mightier thought and greater wealth Than comes from riches and unsullied health! Indeed the greater evil that I mourn Is from these riches that you speak of born, And not from poverty: I mourn the loss Of those who on these golden waters toss And so forget all else! forget the race That won from God of old the greatest grace That yet to any he has granted. When they mount Only the golden disks of fate they count, And count not the immortal word and thought Ihat can’t be added nor to balance brought. You tell me that their poverty’s a tool To motive them to higher—it’s the school This land has used to make all men forget,