Where Then Is Universal Love and Hope?

Where Then Is Universal Love and Hope?
By C. Barrett-Bryan

Can we still see the radiance of the rose
In your smiling hungry face, or is it
The depravity of bellyaching poverty?
Are you the latest casualty of man’s continuing fight against other men?
Has the world come so far, from horses and carriages to five speed automatics,
Zipping by as fast as can be, and learned nothing?

Have we truly forgotten that without each other 
We are but a soulless, unfeeling empty heartless body
And so when even you are forgotten, my little one
Where then is universal love and hope?

Are the deeds of goodness so few
That evil has no more competition?
Can chivalry really be dead?
Whatever happened to protecting the children and the weak 
Looking out for the meek and upholding the right above the wrong?

Where are we to turn and who shall we seek?
And if no hope can be found, then we are lost
And just do not wish to acknowledge it
Because if it is, then so too is our humanity
So too is the very essence of what it is to be human.

How many young precious lives have to be sacrificed
So that any one man, can reign supreme over another?
When will people stop allowing themselves to be led
Into actions to slaughter another’s mother, father, son and daughter?

Stop cheating the people of their basic right to a God given freedom
Stop laying false claim that you are a government for the people
While at the same time, robbing the coffers dry
Leaving us all to ask the question, If not our fellow humankind,
If not the government
Where then is universal love and hope?