Who are those who grovel in the dust,
Thrown out by callous thrust of officialdom?
Who are those who grovel in the earth
To hide belongings?
Who are denied the shade,
Denied the light which God has made?
Who are those whose spent and brittle seed
Is thrust outside? The alien weed
Has bound its tendrils round
Their tender shoots and uprooted them.
Who are those thrust into
The darkness of the night?
Who are those who feed on dirt and grit?
Who deplores their bitter and accursed plight?
None but the Christian who can supply
What officialdom and force of law deny.
Who are those who suffer? No remorse
Can set them right, put back upon their course
Those who are rendered stateless by the state
And must in patience continually wait.
Who are those who in a bustling throng,
Deprived the rights of where they should belong,
Bereft of everything and deprived by law,
Are forced to bury goods beneath the ground,
Lest they be scented by the questing hound?
Here, where the native of the earth
Is forced into unnatural sloth
By the denial of his growth –
We, who can see and feel,
Should now answer their appeal –
Fraught, distraught, a people’s plea
Should arouse our sympathy.
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