Light for All

You can­not pay with mo­ney

The mill­ion sons of toil—

The sail­or on the ocean

The pea­sant on the soil;

The la­bor­er in the quar­ry

The hew­er of the coal

Your coin pays hand and sin­ew

But can­not pay the soul.

You gaze on yon ca­thed­ral

Whose tur­rets meet the sky:

Remember its foun­da­tions

In earth and dark­ness lie;

For

were not those foun­da­tions

So dark­ly rest­ing there

The tow’rs could nev­er rise up

So proud­ly in the air.

The work­shop must be crowd­ed

That pal­aces be bright;

If plough­man made no fur­row

The po­et could not write.

Let eve­ry toil be hal­lowed

That man per­forms for man

And have its share of hon­or

As part of one great plan.

See

light darts down from Heav­en

And en­ters where it may;

The eyes of all earth’s peo­ple

Are cheered with one bright day.

So let the mind’s true sun­shine

Be spread o’er earth so free

To fill the souls that la­bor

As wa­ters fill the sea.

A turn­er of the soil

Need not have earth­ly mind;

Nor dig­ger in the coal field

Be held by spir­it blind:

The mind can shed a light on

All wor­thy la­bor done

And hum­ble acts shine bright­ly

With ra­di­ance of the sun.

The tai­lor and the cob­bler

May lift their heads as men—

Nobler than Al­ex­an­der

If he could live again

And think of all his blood­shed

(And all for no­thing

too!)

And ask him­self—What made I

As use­ful as a shoe?

What cheers the mus­ing stu­dent

The po­et

the di­vine?

The thought that on his fol­low­ers

A bright­er day will shine.

Let ev­ery hu­man la­bor

Enjoy the vi­sion bright—

And let the thought from Heav­en

Be spread like Heav’n’s own light!

O ye who wield the pen

Rise like a band in­spired

Ye po­ets

let your lyr­ics

With hope for man be fired;

Till earth be­comes a tem­ple

And ev­ery hu­man heart

Shall join in one great serv­ice

Each hap­py in his part.