Vision

WITHIN a poor man’s squalid home I stood: The one bare chamber, where his work-worn wife Above the stove and wash-tub passed her life, Next the sty where they slept with all their brood. But I saw not that sunless, breathless lair, The chamber’s sagging roof and reeking floor; The smeared walls, broken sash, and battered door; The foulness and forlornness everywhere. I saw a great house with the portals wide Upon a banquet room, and, from without, The guests descending in a brilliant line By the stair’s statued niches, and beside The loveliest of the gemmed and silken rout The poor man’s landlord leading down to dine.