WITHIN a poor man's squalid home I stood: The one bare chamber, where his work-worn wife Above the stove and wash-tub passed her life, Next the sty where they slept with all their brood. But I saw not that sunless, breathless lair, The chamber's sagging roof and reeking floor; The smeared walls, broken sash, and battered door; The foulness and forlornness everywhere. I saw a great house with the portals wide Upon a banquet room, and, from without, The guests descending in a brilliant line By the stair's statued niches, and beside The loveliest of the gemmed and silken rout The poor man's landlord leading down to dine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RIVULET by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A DISAPPOINTMENT by JOANNA BAILLIE NATALIA'S RESURRECTION: 25 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT A POETICAL VERSION OF A LETTER, FROM THE EARL OF ESSEX TO SOUTHAMPTON by JOHN BYROM |