Where bells no more affright the morn－1
Where scrabble never comes－
Where very nimble Gentlemen
Are forced to keep their rooms－
Where tired Children placid sleep 5
Thro' Centuries of noon
This place is Bliss－this town is Heaven－
Please, Pater, pretty soon!
"Oh could we climb where Moses stood,9
And view the Landscape o'er"
Not Father's bells－nor Factories,
Could scare us any more!
Where scrabble never comes－
Where very nimble Gentlemen
Are forced to keep their rooms－
Where tired Children placid sleep 5
Thro' Centuries of noon
This place is Bliss－this town is Heaven－
Please, Pater, pretty soon!
"Oh could we climb where Moses stood,9
And view the Landscape o'er"
Not Father's bells－nor Factories,
Could scare us any more!
(F.114/J.112)
[1] Where:: Owen's ideal perfect world.
[5] Children placid sleep:: Owen supported the improvement of the children's labor law which limited their working time.
[7] this town is Heaven:: New Moral World, the successor of New Harmony. In 1825, Robert Owen (1771–1858) started his community experiment in New Harmony, Indiana, but failed two years later.
[9] Moses stood:: drawing of the New Moral World is a birds-eye view from the hill.
[11] Factories:: in factory reform, Owen thought happy workers produce more.
[12] Father's bells, scare us:: Owen was a socialism believer.
The religions founded under the name of Jewish, Budh, Jehovah, God or Christ, Mahomet or any other, are all composed of human laws in opposition to nature's eternal laws; and when these laws are analyzed, they amount only to three absurdities－three gross impositions upon the ignorance or inexperience of mankind－three errors, now easily to be detected by the most simple experiment of each individual upon himself. ─ The Book of the New Moral World by Robert Owen (1840)
Owen's evidence was favourable to limiting the working of mills to ten hours a day; to the shutting out from mills of all children under twelve years old; to the previous provision of education, and of special instruction of the girls in sewing, cooking, and other domestic duties; ─ Robert Owen, and His Social Philosophy (1860)