<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396878" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Beggar's Soliloquy</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, <br>To lie all alone on a ragged heath, <br>Where your nose isn't sniffing for bones or beer, <br>But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath. <br>The cottagers bustle about the door, <br>And the girl at the window ties her strings. <br>She's a dish for a man who's a mind to be poor; <br>Lord! women are such expensive things. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">II </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We don't marry beggars, says she: why, no: <br>It seems that to make 'em is what you do; <br>And as I can cook, and scour, and sew, <br>I needn't pay half my victuals for you. <br>A man for himself should be able to scratch, <br>But tickling's a luxury:- love, indeed! <br>Love burns as long as the lucifer match, <br>Wedlock's the candle! Now, that's my creed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The church-bells sound water-like over the wheat; <br>And up the long path troop pair after pair. <br>The man's well-brushed, and the woman looks neat: <br>It's man and woman everywhere! <br>Unless, like me, you lie here flat, <br>With a donkey for friend, you must have a wife: <br>She pulls out your hair, but she brushes your hat. <br>Appearances make the best half of life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV </div><div style="margin:10px 0">You nice little madam! you know you're nice. <br>I remember hearing a parson say <br>You're a plateful of vanity pepper'd with vice; <br>You chap at the gate thinks t' other way. <br>On his waistcoat you read both his head and his heart: <br>There's a whole week's wages there figured in gold! <br>Yes! when you turn round you may well give a start: <br>It's fun to a fellow who's getting old. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">V </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, that's a good craft, weaving waistcoats and flowers, <br>And selling of ribbons, and scenting of lard: <br>It gives you a house to get in from the showers, <br>And food when your appetite jockeys you hard. <br>You live a respectable man; but I ask <br>If it's worth the trouble? You use your tools, <br>And spend your time, and what's your task? <br>Why, to make a slide for a couple of fools. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI </div><div style="margin:10px 0">You can't match the colour o' these heath mounds, <br>Nor better that peat-fire's agreeable smell. <br>I'm clothed-like with natural sights and sounds; <br>To myself I'm in tune: I hope you're as well. <br>You jolly old cot! though you don't own coal: <br>It's a generous pot that's boiled with peat. <br>Let the Lord Mayor o' London roast oxen whole: <br>His smoke, at least, don't smell so sweet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'm not a low Radical, hating the laws, <br>Who'd the aristocracy rebuke. <br>I talk o' the Lord Mayor o' London because <br>I once was on intimate terms with his cook. <br>I served him a turn, and got pensioned on scraps, <br>And, Lord, Sir! didn't I envy his place, <br>Till Death knock'd him down with the softest of taps, <br>And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII </div><div style="margin:10px 0">On the contrary, I'm Conservative quite; <br>There's beggars in Scripture 'mongst Gentiles and Jews: <br>It's nonsense, trying to set things right, <br>For if people will give, why, who'll refuse? <br>That stopping old custom wakes my spleen: <br>The poor and the rich both in giving agree: <br>Your tight-fisted shopman's the Radical mean: <br>There's nothing in common 'twixt him and me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He says I'm no use! but I won't reply. <br>You're lucky not being of use to him! <br>On week-days he's playing at Spider and Fly, <br>And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim! <br>Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: <br>He nods now and then at the name on his door: <br>But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk, <br>I think I'm his match: and I'm honest-that's more. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">X </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No use! well, I mayn't be. You ring a pig's snout, <br>And then call the animal glutton! Now, he, <br>Mr. Shopman, he's nought but a pipe and a spout <br>Who won't let the goods o' this world pass free. <br>This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop, <br>He can't enjoy! all but cash he hates. <br>He's only a snail that crawls under his shop; <br>Though he has got the ear o' the magistrates. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, giving and taking's a proper exchange, <br>Like question and answer: you're both content. <br>But buying and selling seems always strange; <br>You're hostile, and that's the thing that's meant. <br>It's man against man-you're almost brutes; <br>There's here no thanks, and there's there no pride. <br>If Charity's Christian, don't blame my pursuits, <br>I carry a touchstone by which you're tried. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII </div><div style="margin:10px 0">- 'Take it,' says she, 'it's all I've got': <br>I remember a girl in London streets: <br>She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot, <br>My belly was like a lamb that bleats. <br>Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized, <br>You haven't a character here, my dear! <br>But for making a rascal like me so pleased, <br>I'll give you one, in a better sphere! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that's where it is-she made me feel <br>I was a rascal: but people who scorn, <br>And tell a poor patch-breech he isn't genteel, <br>Why, they make him kick up-and he treads on a corn. <br>It isn't liking, it's curst ill-luck, <br>Drives half of us into the begging-trade: <br>If for taking to water you praise a duck, <br>For taking to beer why a man upbraid? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The sermon's over: they're out of the porch, <br>And it's time for me to move a leg; <br>But in general people who come from church, <br>And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg. <br>I'll wager they'll all of 'em dine to-day! <br>I was easy half a minute ago. <br>If that isn't pig that's baking away, <br>May I perish!-we're never contented-heigho!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Meredith">George Meredith</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396878" data-title="The Beggar's Soliloquy de George Meredith" data-description="I Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, To lie all alone on a ragged heath, Where your nose isn't sniffing for bones or beer, But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath. The cottagers bustle about the door, And the girl at the windo..."></div> </div> </div>

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