The Lowly Song Of A Lowly Bard Poem by Janet Hamilton

'My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, or rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise:
The child of parents passed into the skies.'-


Cowper


'We are lowly, very lowly:'
Low the bard, and low the song;
Lowly thou, my own dear village;
Lowly those I dwell among.


From my lowly home of childhood
Low sweet voices fill my ears,
Till my drooping lids grow heavy
With the weight of tender tears.


Low in station, low in labour,
Low in all that worldlings prize,
Till the voice say, 'Come up hither,'
To a mansion in the skies.


From that lowly cot the sainted
Rose from earth's low cares and woes;
From that lowly couch, my mother
To her home in heaven arose.


In that cot, so lone and lowly,
(Childhood's hand might reach the thatch),
God was felt, and o'er the dwellers
Angel eyes kept loving watch.


Lowly heart, and lowly bearing,
Heaven and earth will best approve.
Jesus! Thou wert meek and lowly-
Low on earth, but Lord above.


Yet, not low my aspirations:
High and strong my soul's desire
To assist my toiling brothers
Upward, onward to aspire.


Upward to the heaven above us,
Onward in the march of mind,
Upward to the shrine of freedom,
Onward, working for our kind.


This to you, my working brothers,
I inscribe; may nothing low
Dwell in mind, in heart, or habit;
Upward look, and onward go.