Inconvenient To Be Poor (1894)
When the sky is overcast, and you feel the winter's blast,
And poverty comes knocking at the door,
Your face begins to fall, till it's like a funeral pall,
And you feel it's inconvenient to be poor.
The agent calls for rent, and you have not got a cent,
And the odds and ends of sticks you own are few,
He leaves your little gate in a rather flurried state,
But he soon returns again and helps you through.
Although your things are old, you see everything is sold
By a dressed up, clever auctioneering gent,
You know about the size when you see him advertise
A cheerful lot of goods distrained for rent.
And the pleasant little fun of giving you the run.
Makes you feel so small, like shrinking all away.
You try to hide your face from what seems a disgrace,
Though honest, vou are just too poor to pay.
But there's a righteous judge, from whom no one can budge,
Nor cavil at the sentence He shall give,
And the rich man and the poor will receive his score,
According to the way that he shall live.
Man's life is but a breath, and it's soon snuffed out by death,
Then where all the riches that he's stor'd ?
He leaves them to another, to worry and to bother,
And screw the poor down that he may also hoard.
His riches raise him high, till he thinks he's in the sky,
And looks down upon the poor and needy soul
When charity shall call to enter heaven's hall,
He'll find his name is on the other roll.
W.J.E.
Notes
From the Melbourne Newspaper the Prahran Chronicle Saturday 18 August 1894 p. 1.