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O World, Be Nobler

Laurence Binyon

O world, be nobler, for her sake!
  If she but knew thee what thou art,
What wrongs are borne, what deeds are done
In thee, beneath thy daily sun,
  Know’st thou not that her tender heart
For pain and very shame would break?
O World, be nobler, for her sake!

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900 | Clarendon, 1919

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