Poems
The Unregarded Toils Of The Poor
Alas! what secret tears are shed,
What wounded spirits bleed;
What loving hearts are sundered
And yet man takes no heed!
He goeth in his daily course,
Made fat with oil and wine,
And pitieth not the weary souls
That in his bondage pine, —
That turn for him the mazy wheel,
That delve for him the mine!
And pitieth not the children small
In noisy factories dim,
That all day long, lean, pale, and faint,
Do heavy tasks for him!
To him they are but as the stones
Beneath his feet that lie:
It entereth not his thoughts that they
From him claim sympathy:
It entereth not his thoughts that God
Heareth the sufferer’s groan,
That in His righteous eye their life
Is precious as his own.
What wounded spirits bleed;
What loving hearts are sundered
And yet man takes no heed!
He goeth in his daily course,
Made fat with oil and wine,
And pitieth not the weary souls
That in his bondage pine, —
That turn for him the mazy wheel,
That delve for him the mine!
And pitieth not the children small
In noisy factories dim,
That all day long, lean, pale, and faint,
Do heavy tasks for him!
To him they are but as the stones
Beneath his feet that lie:
It entereth not his thoughts that they
From him claim sympathy:
It entereth not his thoughts that God
Heareth the sufferer’s groan,
That in His righteous eye their life
Is precious as his own.
Analysis (ai): Written in the mid-19th century, the poem aligns with social protest literature emerging during the Industrial Revolution, a period when writers increasingly addressed labor exploitation. Unlike contemporaries who focused on urban poverty through narrative or fiction, this poem uses direct moral appeal typical of reform-minded verse of the era.
- Theme and Focus: The poem emphasizes unnoticed suffering among laborers and children, stressing emotional and spiritual tolls over physical hardship alone. Rather than spotlighting rebellion or heroism, it underscores the psychological isolation of the oppressed, a theme less dominant in mainstream social poetry of the time.
- Moral Address: It positions indifference as the central sin, criticizing not active cruelty but the failure to perceive shared humanity. This shifts blame from institutions to individual conscience, a strategy common in religiously inflected reform texts but less frequent in later, more systemic critiques.
- Religious Underpinning: The reference to divine judgment frames inequality as a spiritual failing, echoing evangelical currents in Victorian reform. Unlike secular labor poetry that emerged later, this relies on moral accountability before God rather than human rights discourse.
- Connection to Author’s Oeuvre: Among Mary Botham Howitt’s larger body of moral and nature poetry, this work stands out for its unflinching social critique, diverging from her more common domestic or didactic themes. It reflects her Quaker-influenced ethics, consistent with her advocacy but sharper in tone than her typical output.
- Stylistic Approach: The form follows a simple quatrains structure with regular meter and rhyme, using accessible language to reach a broad audience. This conventional style contrasts with the growing formal experimentation seen in later Victorian poets but serves the poem’s didactic purpose.
- Engagement with Contemporary Norms: While many of her peers used allegory or sentimentality to soften social critique, this poem employs stark imagery—children pale and faint in factories—without romanticizing their plight, offering a more direct indictment than much popular reform verse.
- Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than portraying the poor as noble or resilient, the poem focuses on their erasure from consciousness; the core issue is epistemic—what the privileged fail to see or imagine. This makes indifference a cognitive failure, not merely moral laziness, a subtler claim than typical calls for charity.
- Position in Literary History: Though less anthologized than Blake’s chimney sweep poems or Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Cry of the Children, this work contributes to a strain of women’s social poetry that framed labor issues through maternal and spiritual lenses, often excluded from canonical labor literature.
Mary Howitt
(1799 – 1888)
Mary Howitt
(12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English writer, editor, translator and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the UK. She is most known as the author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She translated several works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband, William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
