 | Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) |  |
137
IV.—Low Life.
Let your soul put on rags to-night; we are going where life is low;
Not, I mean, where murder will smite, not to dens that with thieves o'erflow;
Not to haunts that shall shock, distress; but to low life, nevertheless!
For caste hath lairs packed with pride not of righteous deeds but of race,
And avarice hath slums where bide the misanthropies that debase—
Though in either the rich light falls between grandeurs of gilded walls.
Not, I mean, where murder will smite, not to dens that with thieves o'erflow;
Not to haunts that shall shock, distress; but to low life, nevertheless!
For caste hath lairs packed with pride not of righteous deeds but of race,
And avarice hath slums where bide the misanthropies that debase—
Though in either the rich light falls between grandeurs of gilded walls.
Nay, the outcasts not all may be found among alley-ways noisome with dirt;
There are paupers unclean, unsound, whom penury's harms may not hurt;
There are lives wealth-defended from ill, yet whose days are one poverty still!
There are paupers unclean, unsound, whom penury's harms may not hurt;
There are lives wealth-defended from ill, yet whose days are one poverty still!
| Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) | |