Chirping little insects in the ditch,

Who sing unheeded daylight pains at night;

Disturb the night! Disturb the sleeping rich,

The men whose only bother is delight;

Disturb the torpid conscience with this itch!

With cries of ill-born babies badly nursed,

Torn away from love, or bred in dirt.

Tell of babes, baptised in church, yet cursed

By ancient ills, and circumstance of birth;

Who lift a thinning arm in longing pain

To bare a naked rib, and withered armpit!

If infant spirits worship God in song,

Before our God, these others can't but cry.