William Blake
Songs of Experience

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 sun 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 can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appal.