Foliage: Various Poems

THE HELPLESS

     Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed
       To hear at night the clocks' hard tones;
     They have no beds to warm their limbs,
       But with those limbs must warm cold stones;
     Those poor weak men, whose coughs and ailings
     Force them to tear at iron railings.

     Those helpless men that starve, my pity;
       Whose waking day is never done;
     Who, save for their own shadows, are
       Doomed night and day to walk alone:

     So cold and dark are human ones.