Human Brotherhood Poem by John Critchley Prince

The king who is swathed in the splendours of state,
Whose power and possessions are wide,
Is akin to the beggar who whines at his gate,
Howe'er it may torture his pride;
He is subject to ailments, and dangers, and woes,
As the wretch who encounters the blast,
And despite of his grandeur, his bones must repose
In the same grave of nature at last.

The beauty, surrounded by homage and wealth,
Whose glance of command is supreme,
Who walks in the grace of rich raiment and health,
Whose life seems a musical dream,—
Is sister to her who, old, haggard and worn,
Receives a chance crust by the way;
The proud one may treat her with silence and scorn,
But their kinship no truth can gainsay.

The scholar who glories in gifts of the mind,
Who ransacks the treasures of Time,
Who scatters his thoughts on the breath of the wind,
And makes his own being sublime,—
Even he is a brother to him at the plough,
Whose feet crush the flowers in their bloom;
And to him who toils on with a care-furrowed brow
In chambers of clangour and gloom.

Chance, circumstance, intellect, change us in life,
Repulse us and keep us apart,
But would we had less of injustice and strife,
And more of right reason and heart.
One great human family, born of one Power,
Each claiming humanity's thought,
We should let our best sympathies flow like a dower,
And give and receive as we ought.