Classic Poem

The Beggar

She shiver'd in the snow, and, limping, drew
About her a scant robe of one thin fold:
Her head and feet were bare; the sharp wind blew;
She sobb'd for very cold.

No house, no hap, no hope to bid her live;
Her very soul shrank from the biting air,—
Yet I, well clad, could pass her, and not give
The cloak I well could spare.

O, poor in heart! which beggar the more cold—
I, doubly clad, or she in rags so thin?
Her poverty a garment's scanty fold—
My poverty within!English