Foliage: Various Poems

WHO I KNOW

     I do not know his grace the Duke,
       Outside whose gilded gate there died
     Of want a feeble, poor old man,
       With but his shadow at his side.

     I do not know his Lady fair,
       Who in a bath of milk doth lie;
     More milk than could feed fifty babes,
       That for the want of it must die.

     But well I know the mother poor,
       Three pounds of flesh wrapped in her shawl:
     A puny babe that, stripped at home,
       Looks like a rabbit skinned, so small.

     And well I know the homeless waif,
       Fed by the poorest of the poor;

       Crying against a bolted door.