Page:The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series.djvu/94

 Some to work on roads, canals; some to man his ships; Some to smart in mines beneath sharp overseers' whips; Some to trap fur-beasts in lands where utmost winter nips.

Once it came into my heart, and whelmed me like a flood, That these too are men and women, human flesh and blood; Men with hearts and men with souls, though trodden down like mud.

Our feasting was not glad that night, our music was not gay: On my mother's graceful head I marked a thread of grey, My father frowning at the fare seemed every dish to weigh.

I sat beside them sole princess in my exalted place, My ladies and my gentlemen stood by me on the dais: A mirror showed me I look old and haggard in the face;

It showed me that my ladies all are fair to gaze upon, Plump, plenteous-haired, to every one love's secret lore is known, They laugh by day, they sleep by night; ah me, what is a throne? 72