While The Billy BoilsSearchHELP ye the Blind that cannot help themselves,His greatest blessing God from them withholds;The deepest pit-slave in no darkness delvesLike that black bondage that the Blind enfolds.Our world is sweet with sunshine and with smiles,Theirs is a no-man’s-land of sorrowed shade;We laugh along the glad and golden milesThe pools of nether night they weary wade.Help ye the Blind, and unto Heaven prayThat He has showered sunlight on your way!
WORK for the Blind, let them not know the needOf seeking for to-morrow’s urgent meal;There is no class, partitioning nor creedWhere all their halting way for ever feel.The splendour of the earth and sky is ours,The dawn magnificent, the eventide;The verdant valleys, summer streams and flow’rs,The hills where light and loveliness abide.And though their perfume wanders on the windAll else is but a mockery to the Blind!
PITY the Blind, whose eyes may never seeThe dear ones round about who laugh and love;The curly-headed babes around their knee,The star-worlds beaming in the blue above.They touch the tiny hands and tiny headsThat alter through the long processing years;But on through all their darkness and their dreadsThey do not see their loved ones’ tender tears.Towards the black abyss that lies behindGo all the pains and pleasures of the Blind!
THINK for the Blind, and, when you’re thinking, thinkIf that same shadow came to yours and you,And not a beam of light broke o’er the brinkTo pierce the Stygian shadow through and through.Picture yourself blind, friendless and alone,Your loved ones’ voices echoes of the past,The golden mem’ries you in youth had knownInto a black and bleak Avernus cast.Hell is more happy, curses less unkindThan a hard world towards the friendless Blind!
SEE for the Blind, lend them your precious sight,Make one day glorious in those years of painAnd though you cannot lead them to the light,Be you their beacon through th’ Unlightened Lane.Do unto them as they to you would doHad fate upon you set a sightless seal,Let their poor useless eyes not turn to youA mute and melancholy vain appeal.May He who tortured died for human-kindPlead to you through this Ballad of the Blind!