The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The labouring children can look out
And see the men at play.
- Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn (1900s)
This poem may be very short, but it expresses the social problem during the time it was written: child labor. The first time I read it, I did not read it carefully, and thus did not understand. But when I started to think deeper, I realized what the poem meant.
Usually it would be the adults working and the children playing, such as in today's society, but in the 1900s child labor had not been prohibited. The weight of the problem is displayed in the poem. The irony of the situation; adults enjoying themself at golf while the children work hard at a mill, doing hard labor; the opposite of the usual norms of society. Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn, seeing this, managed to capture it into an ironic poem, and capture the attentions of people everywhere.
This poem has made an impression on me because of the irony of the situation.
I learnt that I am extremely fortunate that I do not live in a time where child labor was still allowed. I feel that, as children, we should not work: our place is to study, or play, and eventually when we grow up we will all start working.
A child that works might not be able to take the strains of adult life. The poem has taught me a lot; I have learnt not to take this comfortable life for granted; I shall study hard.
