IT seems the cost of living is not a local ill; all round the world it's giving poor purchasers a chill. Beside the broad Nyanzas the people kick and roar, as buyers do in Kansas, when at the corner store. Where knobby alligators infest the stagnant Nile, it takes, to buy some taters, the poor consumer's pile. By many an ancient river, by many a storied lake, men pay as much for liver as they should pay for steak. Where sweet and spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, the purchaser of cheeses forgets to sing and smile. Among the hills of Sweden, mid Greenland's snow and ice, the people's hearts are bleedin' when they behold the price. Along the dark McKenzie, and by the languid Po, consumers, in a frenzy, are lifting wails of woe. The Eskimo, when buying his tenderloin of whale, the Hottentot, who's trying to eat a hemlock rail, all swell the angry chorus, all weep and tear the robe; the grief we see before us extends around the globe. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HAPPY WIND by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! by WALT WHITMAN LIVE IN THE PRESENT by SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON THE INDIAN GONE! by JOSIAH D. CANNING TO AN HOUR-GLASS by JOHN CLARE THE FATAL DREAM; OR, THE UNHAPPY FAVOURITE; AN ELEGY by EMANUEL COLLINS |