Poverty

Bread in poverty is so dear, So cheap are sweat, blood and tear; O God! Poverty shuts neither door nor window, But prosperity opens neither of the two for the poor and the low. For a poor man clothes are so expensive, So cheap is bareness, parts of body look pensive; In poverty medicines and doctors are rare, In poor family disease of this or that is found everywhere. Love flies away in poverty, the quarrel often horns, Poverty changes honour into shame and flowers into thorns; Poor though a man is, art and skills he has enough, In poverty learning is easy but teaching is tough. Poverty is better than miserliness and extravagance, Poverty is not a shame, nor a vice, it is the test of tolerance; Prosperity makes us inactive and sick of bed, Poverty scratches us inside to be starved, not to be fed. Poor person is one who lacks a duty and a thought, The rich person is poor if some more money is sought; Prosperity is worse than poverty if prosperity is a share of others, It is folly to talk of prosperity if poor are the brothers.