[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).]
The Poor Can Feed the Birds
Ragged, unheeded, stooping, meanly shod,
The poor pass to the pond: not far away
The spires go up to God.
Shyly they come from the unpainted lane;
Coats have they made of old unhappiness
That keeps in every pain.
The rich have fear, perchance their God is dim;
’Tis with the hope of stored-up happiness
They build their spires to Him.
The rich go out in clattering pomp and dare
In the most holy places to insult
The deep Benevolence there.
But ’tis the poor who make the loving words.
Slowly they stoop; it is a Sacrament:
The poor can feed the birds.
Old, it is old, this scattering of the bread,
Deep as forgiveness, or the tears that go
Out somewhere to the dead.
The feast of love, the love that is the cure
For all indignities — it reigns, it calls,
It chains us to the pure.
Seldom they speak of God, He is too dim;
So without thought of after happiness
They feed the birds for Him.
The rich men walk not here on the green sod,
But they have builded towers, the timorous
That still go up to God.
Still will the poor go out with loving words;
In the long need, the need for happiness
The poor can feed the birds.
Source:
Shaw Neilson, Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1938, pages 28-29
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