21 - Victorian Poverty Poem by nicola burkett

A period of extreme poverty of the lower working classes
As they worked to the death the rich sat politely on their arses
London’s poor tried to scrape a living doing jobs the devil created
As the rich sat at their windows laughing at the pitiful souls they hated

The poor would have sooner died than enter the poor houses control
As it was not fit to harbor a single living human soul
Small boys were used to clean narrow sooted chimneys
While in the coal mines children worked on their hands and knees

Although this golden age pioneered many useful inventions
Children privileged to go to school were whipped instead of detentions
And as the poor worked for a life at every waking hour
The rich covered their stench with perfume and wild flowers

The poor had nothing and hardly anything to eat
While the rich enjoyed tea and honey and sherbet lemon sweets
In Victorian London the poor just lived and died
The rich never really noticed the rich never really cried

A period of extreme poverty of the lower working classes
As they worked to the death the rich sat politely on their asses