What doth the Poor Man's Son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things;
A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labour sings!
What doth the Poor Man's Son inherit?
A patience learnt of being poor;
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it:
A fellow-feeling that is sure
To make the Outcast bless his door.
Oh! Rich Man's Son, there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whiten soft white hands--
This is the best crop from thy lands.
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
* * * * *
Oh! Poor Man's Son, scorn not thy state;
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And-makes rest fragrant and benign!
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both children of the same great God!
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-spent past.
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