| Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | | III. “All men are equal in their birth” | | By Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) |
| | | ALL men are equal in their birth, | |
| Heirs of the earth and skies; | |
| All men are equal when that earth | |
| Fades from their dying eyes. | |
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| All wait alike on Him whose power | 5 |
| Upholds the life He gave; | |
| The sage within his star-lit tower, | |
| The savage in his cave. | |
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| God meets the throngs that pay their vows | |
| In courts their hands have made; | 10 |
| And hears the worshipper who bows | |
| Beneath the plantain shade. | |
| |
| ’Tis man alone who difference sees, | |
| And speaks of high and low, | |
| And worships those and tramples these, | 15 |
| While the same path they go. | |
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| Oh, let man hasten to restore | |
| To all their rights of love; | |
| In power and wealth exult no more; | |
| In wisdom lowly move. | 20 |
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| Ye great! renounce your earth-born pride; | |
| Ye low, your shame and fear: | |
| Live as ye worship side by side; | |
| Your brotherhood revere. | | | | |
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