Honoured I lived e'erwhile with honoured men In opulent state. My table nightly spread Found guests of worth, peer, priest and citizen, And poet crowned, and beauty garlanded. Nor these alone, for hunger too I fed, And many a lean tramp and sad Magdalen Passed from my doors less hard for sake of bread. Whom grudged I ever purse or hand or pen? To-night, unwelcomed at these gates of woe I stand with churls, and there is none to greet My weariness with smile or courtly show Nor, though I hunger long, to bring me meat. God! what a little accident of gold Fences our weakness from the wolves of old! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HEART OF THE TREE by HENRY CUYLER BUNNER CHURCHILL'S GRAVE by GEORGE GORDON BYRON AN ODE TO THE RAIN by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE OF THE WARS IN IRELAND by JOHN HARRINGTON L.E.L. by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |