Poems of William Blake

 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.