William Henry Davies

“ Storing, methought, more bitter stuff than sweet.
The air was foul and stale; from their green homes
Young blood had brought its fresh and rosy cheeks,
Which soon turned colour, like blue streams in flood.
Aye, solitude, black solitude indeed,
To meet a million souls and know not one;
This world must soon grow stale to one compelled
To look all day at faces strange and cold. ”

“ I saw white towers where so-called traitors died—
True men whose tongues were bells to honest hearts,
And rang out boldly in false monarch's ears.
Saw old black gateways, on whose arches crouched
Stone lions with their bodies gnawed by age. ”

“ In solemn courtyards, midst the men-at-arms;
Which suddenly would leap those stony walls
And spring up with loud laughter into trees.
I walked in busy streets where music oft
Went on the march with men; and ofttimes heard
The organ in cathedral, when the boys
Like nightingales sang in that thunderstorm;
The organ, with its rich and solemn tones—
As near a God's voice as a man conceives;
Nor ever dreamt the silent misery
That solemn organ brought to homeless men. ”