Explore "Christian Virtues" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh, dear! / The Christian virtues will disappear! / Nowhere on land or sea / Will be room for charity! / Nowhere, in field or city, / A person to help or pity! / Better for them, no doubt, / Not to need helping out / Of their old miry ditch. / But, alas for us, the rich! / For we shall lose, you see, / Our boasted charity! - / Lose all the pride and joy / Of giving the poor employ, / And money, and food, and love / (And making stock thereof! ). / Our Christian virtues are gone, / With nothing to practise on!
It don't hurt them a bit, / For they can't practise it; / But it's our great joy and pride- / What virtue have we beside? / We believe, as sure as we live, / That it is more blessed to give / Than to want, and waste, and grieve, / And occasionally receive! / And here are the people pressing / To rob us of our pet blessing! / No chance to endow or bedizen / A hospital, school, or prison, / And leave our own proud name / To Gratitude and Fame! / No chance to do one good deed, / To give what we do not need, / To leave what we cannot use / To those whom we deign to choose! / When none want broken meat, / How shall our cake be sweet? / When none want flannels and coals, / How shall we save our souls? / Oh, dear! Oh, dear! / The Christian virtues will disappear!