The World is Full of Kindness
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
The World is full of kindness—
And not the poor alone;
We Christians in our blindness
Bow down to hearts of stone;
The clever, bitter cynic,
Whose poisoned “soul” is dead,
And, like the rotten clinic,
Raves, helpless, on his bed.
The world is full of kindness—
But not the White alone;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone;
But all men are his brothers,
In spite of all the “Powers,”
And the things he does for others
Shew whiter souls than ours.
The world is full of kindness—
But not the Lean alone;
The Fat man in his blindness
Bows down, and not to stone;
But when a friend’s in trouble,
And an honest friend at that,
Then I’d turn to the Fat man
In spite of all his fat.
The world is full of kindness
If it is let alone,
And men’s hearts in their blindness
Are neither ice nor stone.
In spite of all pretences,
We get it from Above;
In spite of all defences—
Red blood, kind hearts, and love.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 49 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | Ababcdcd Ababeeee Ababxfxf Ababagag |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 919 |
Words | 181 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
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"The World is Full of Kindness" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/18144/the-world-is-full-of-kindness>.
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