 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON THE ROUGHNESS OF MY VERSE.
My Muse is harsh, they say—ay, so 't may bePerhaps: how could it well be otherwise,
When every morn she hears a People's cries
For bread? and Nature itself scarce seems free
From the wide taint of human misery!
She cannot pick her phrases, and be nice,
When toiling Virtue stands rebuked by Vice,
And Nations starve to keep up pedigree!
She's not the silken Muse of drawing-rooms—
'Mid life's stern, bitter truths, she walks the streets,
The idle hammer, and the empty looms,
By which sits lank Despair, and Hunger cheats,
Gnawing his rivelled knuckles: 'mid the seats
Of Commerce, which bad laws now make its tombs!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |