Classic Poem

I saw bent figures toiling in a dusk
That seemed beyond the reaches of the Day,
Pinched faces at the grimy window squares,
Youth turned to something wracked and old and gray.

I had left sunshine on my study floor,
Laughter behind me in a woman's eyes,
Paintings and books and friendly smiling things,
The sum of which is mortal paradise.

Yet here in that same world bent figures toiled
From gloomy windows to the deeps of gloom,
Thin-fingered women, sad as prisoners,
Plied glinting needles in a coffin'd room.

The Quarter Lodgers, sprawled upon a bench,
Read crumpled papers in the half-slain light,
Draining the sordid romance of the press,
Finding some little comfort from their plight.

And then a child, with eyes to break my heart,
Leaned from a window and with hands that shook
Poured water on a dead geranium—
And that alone was worth a wise man's book.

End o' the line, the lifting overhead,
As in a graveyard costly shafts are wrought,
The House of Government, white to the sun,
And in one room a fat man, doing naught.