Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!

These lines are from Thomas Hood’s poem “The Song of the Shirt” (1843), a widely read Victorian protest poem written in response to the harsh conditions of London needlewomen and other sweated laborers. Hood, known for mixing wit with social critique, published the poem in the satirical magazine Punch, where it quickly became a touchstone in debates about poverty, industrial capitalism, and moral responsibility. The lament about “Christian charity” appears as part of the poem’s indictment of a society that professes Christian values while tolerating extreme exploitation and hunger among the working poor.

The speaker’s cry—“Alas for the rarity / Of Christian charity / Under the sun!”—is a bitter moral verdict. Hood contrasts the ideal of Christian compassion with its scarcity in everyday social practice, implying that charity has become exceptional rather than habitual. The phrasing turns a religious virtue into a measurable social failure: if charity is “rare,” then the dominant norm is indifference. In the larger poem, the line functions as a refrain-like lament that intensifies the critique of respectable society, suggesting that piety and prosperity coexist with neglect of suffering, and that such neglect is not merely economic but ethical.