Invitation

I bring you a prairie greeting Crested with sunlight sheen, A picture of mountains rising To snow-capped heights of green; A call from the happy home-land Where human hearts beat warm, Where western corn-fields beckon And shelter from life's storm.

London, thy heart of riches Hath the pulse-beat of unrest, Where the many know no shelter, Where the babe weeps at the breast All bared to the winter shiver, Where the hearth-fire, cold and dead, Is darkened by the shadow And Shapes of the underfed.

Oh, the hopeless, heavy-burdened Bearers of woe and pain,-- Mere human stones in the highway Of London's greed and gain. There weeps the child whom sadness And want have made their own; There weeps the old, whom gladness Is a stranger, and unknown.

Oh, come to the land of Plenty Where the gates swing open, wide; Where all mankind stand equal---- Where toil is a boast--a pride: Where the silken palm clasps the horny hand When the long day's work is done, Where new life is born in the growing corn In the land of the Setting Sun.

NOTE.--Written in January, 1907, after seeing 700 men and women fed by Charity on the Thames embankment as "Big Ben" struck ONE A. M.