The Poor Voter on Election Day

THE PROUDEST now is but my peer,

The highest not more high;

To-day, of all the weary year,

A king of men am I.

To-day, alike are great and small,

The nameless and the known;

My palace is the people’s hall,

The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list

Beside the served shall stand;

Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,

The gloved and dainty hand!

The rich is level with the poor,

The weak is strong to-day;

And sleekest broadcloth counts no more

Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence

My stubborn right abide;

I set a plain man’s common sense

Against the pedant’s pride.

To-day shall simple manhood try

The strength of gold and land;

The wide world has not wealth to buy

The power in my right hand!

While there ’s a grief to seek redress,

Or balance to adjust,

Where weighs our living manhood less

Than Mammon’s vilest dust,—

While there ’s a right to need my vote,

A wrong to sweep away,

Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!

A man ’s a man to-day!

1848.