Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Gaelic bards, and original poems

258
ORIGINAL POEMS.
OPPRESSORS AND THE OPPRESSED.
ECCLESIASTES, IV, 1—3.
And then I turned to the oppressed,
And lo! the tears they shed—
The silent and the bitter tears,
And the hard life they led.
Now they were scourged by bitter tongues,
Now scorned by haughty eyes,
And shut by cold and ruffian hearts
From fostering sympathies.
And as I looked I marvelled much—
I wondered much to see,
That men of grace, so needful all,
So graceless all should be.
I marvelled, when some shameless man,
Of low and selfish ways,
I saw advanced to places high,
And overwhelmed with praise.
I marvelled at them all, to think
That these—and such as these—•
Should have this great and glorious world
To do with as they please.
And then I said, “Between them both,
Hypocrisy and gold,
Sway this great world in every way—
They sway the young and old.
“They sway the high, they sway the low—
The learned and the lay—
They sway the high imposingly,
The mean, in meaner way.”