Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LANDLORD, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: What boot your houses and your lands Last Line: The titles of the wise and brave. Subject(s): Landlords & Tenants | ||||||||
WHAT boot your houses and your lands? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard's sands, And mock your ownership's pretence. How shall you speak to urge your right, Choked with that soil for which you lust? The bit of clay, for whose delight You grasp, is mortgaged, too; Death might Foreclose this very day in dust. Fence as you please, this plain poor man, Whose only fields are in his wit, Who shapes the world, as best he can, According to God's higher plan, Owns you, and fences as is fit. Though yours the rents, his incomes wax By right of eminent domain; From factory tall to woodman's axe, All things on earth must pay their tax, To feed his hungry heart and brain. He takes you from your easy-chair, And what he plans that you must do; You sleep in down, eat dainty fare, -- He mounts his crazy garret-stair And starves, the landlord over you. Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, You make more green six feet of soil; His fruitful word, like suns and rains, Partakes the seasons' bounteous pains, And toils to lighten human toil. Your lands; with force or cunning got, Shrink to the measure of the grave; But Death himself abridges not The tenures of almighty thought, The titles of the wise and brave. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VACATING AN APARTMENT by AGHA SHAHID ALI BALLAD OF THE LANDLORD by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES THE LANDLADY IN BANGKOK by KAREN SWENSON THE LAST LANDLORD by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 1. LORD CRASHTON by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 2. FINLAY by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 3. ISAAC BROWN by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 8. THE EVICTION by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE HEATHER ON FIRE by MATHILDE BLIND AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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