THE characters of great and small Come ready-made, we can't bespeak one; Their sides are many, too, and all (Except ourselves) have got a weak one. Some sanguine people love for life, Some love their hobby till it flings them. How many love a pretty wife For love of the @3eclat@1 she brings them! A little to relieve my mind I've thrown off this disjointed chatter, But more because I'm disinclin'd To enter on a painful matter: Once I was bashful; I'll allow I've blush'd for words untimely spoken; I still am rather shy, and now... And now the ice is fairly broken. We all have secrets: you have one Which mayn't be quite your charming spouse's; We all lock up a skeleton In some grim chamber of our houses; Familiars, who exhaust their days And nights in probing where our smart is, And who, excepting spiteful ways, Are "silent, unassuming @3parties@1." We hug this phantom we detest, Rarely we let it cross our portals; It is a most exacting guest: Now, are we not afflicted mortals? Your neighbor Gay, that jovial wight, As Dives rich, and brave as Hector, -- Poor Gay steals twenty times a night, On shaking knees, to see his spectre. Old Dives fears a pauper fate, So hoarding is his ruling passion: Some gloomy souls anticipate A waistcoat straiter than the fashion! She childless pines, that lonely wife, And secret tears are bitter shedding; Hector may tremble all his life, And die, -- but not of that he's dreading. Ah me, the World! -- how fast it spins! The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles; They shriek, they stir it for our sins, And we must drain it for our troubles. We toil, we groan; the cry for love Mounts up from this poor seething city, And yet I know we have above A FATHER infinite in pity. When Beauty smiles, when Sorrow weeps, Where sunbeams play, where shadows darken, One inmate of our dwelling keeps Its ghastly carnival; but hearken! How dry the rattle of the bones! That sound was not to make you start meant: Stand by! Your humble servant owns The Tenant of this Dark Apartment. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CONSERVATIVE by CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON GILMAN THE BEACHCOMBER by MILDRED DOSCH BANTA S. JOHN: THE DISCIPLE, WHOM JESUS LOVED by JOSEPH BEAUMONT TO CHILDREN: 5. DAME HOLIDAY by WILLIAM ROSE BENET WHAT MAKES A NATION GREAT? by ALEXANDER BLACKBURN ADMONITION by FREDERIKA BLACKNER |