GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS.
Who shall judge a man from nature?
Who shall know him by his dress?
Paupers may be fit for princes;
Princes fit for something less.
Crumpled shirt and dirty jacket
May beclothe the golden ore
Of the deepest thought and feeling—
Satin vest could do no more. There are springs of purest crystal
Ever welling out of store;
There are purple beds and golden
Hidden, crushed, and overgrown.
God, who counts by souls, not dresses,
Loves and prospers you and me,
While he values thrones the highest
But as pebbles on the sea. Man upraised above his fellows
Oft forgets his fellows then;
Masters, rulers—lords remember
That your meanest hands are men,
Men of labor, men of feeling,
Men of thought and men of fame,
Claiming equal rights to sunshine
In a man's ennobling name. There are foam-embroidered oceans,
There are little weed-clad rills,
There are feeble inch high saplings
There are cedars on the hills;
God, who counts by souls, not stations,
Loves and prospers you and me,
For to him all vain distinctions
Are as pebbles on the sea. Toiling hands alone are builders
Of a nation's wealth and fame,
Titled laziness is pensioned,
Fed and fattened on the same,
By the sweat of other foreheads,
Living only to rejoice,
While the poor man's outraged freedom
Vainly lifted up its voice. Truth and justice are eternal,
Born with loveliness and light;
Secret wrongs shall never prosper
While there is a sun by day.
God, whose world-heard voice is singing
Boundless love to you and me
Sinks oppression, with its titles,
As the pebbles in the sea.