While we shouted our wares with the swindler and beggar, our cheap stuffs for the best, while we cheated and haggled and bettered each low trick and railed with the rest -- In a trice squalor failed, even squalor to cheat for a voice caught the sky in one sudden note, spread grass at the horses' feet, spread a carpet of scented thyme and meadow-sweet till the asses lifted their heads to the air with the stifled cattle and sheep. Ah, squalor was cheated at last for a bright head flung back, caught the ash-tree fringe of the foot-hill, the violet slope of the hill, one bright head flung back stilled the haggling, one throat bared and the shouting was still. Clear, clear -- till our heart's shell was reft with the shrill notes, our old hatreds were healed. Squalor spreads its hideous length through the carts and the asses' feet, squalor coils and draws back and recoils with no voice to rebuke -- for the boys have gone out of the city, the songs withered black on their lips. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE YARN OF THE 'NANCY BELL' by WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT THE CITY CHILD by ALFRED TENNYSON SONNET: 15 by RICHARD BARNFIELD ONLY A CURL by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING EPIGRAM ON MISS DAVIES; LINES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW AT MOFFAT INN by ROBERT BURNS A CRAFTSMAN'S AMBITION by BLISS CARMAN TAMPICO by GRACE HAZARD CONKLING |