Уильям Биллингтон (William Billington)

Let us Hope for Better Days

IN true men's lives it is not true
    That Labour plays a losing game;
Though Fame but chronicles the few,
    She leaves you room to write your name;
Then fearlessly the feat perform,
    Nor heed what hateful envy says,
But stem the stream and brave the storm
    And live in hopes of better days.

'Tis hard, when two fond hearts are linked
    In love that lasts for evermore—
When, quick, as if the welkin winked
    And darkness shed from shore to shore,
A grave is thrown across the path
    Of life, and withers all its bays,
And blights the fairest bloom it hath—
    'Tis hard to hope for better days.

'Tis hard to bear the bitter smart
    Of care and pinching poverty,
Till brain is frenzied and the heart
    Is frozen into apathy;
But fickle Fortune frown thy fill!
    The freaks thy eldest daughter plays
Shall never rob me of the will
    To bear till dawn of better days!

Oppression's gloomy clouds may lower
    And Slander's blighting winds may blow,
But patience in the peril-hour
    Shall triumph o'er the double foe;
Though Danger and Disaster come
    And hedge me in a thousand ways,
Still, smiling in the face of Doom,
    I'll wait and watch for better days.

Be humble but hold up your heads,
    Though want and scant may be your lot,
For they that sleep on downy beds
    May in a paupers coffin rot,
While many, who with Indigence
    Are plodding now, shall proudly raise
Themselves to wealth and eminence;
    So let us hope for better days.

The morning dawns upon the night,
    And Spring the Winter still succeeds,
And Wrong is vanquished by the Right,
    And Truth dispels the darkest creeds,
And for the worthy working man
    Shall still ring out my rugged lays,
To break the dull despairing ban
    And bid him hope for better days.