To a Millionaire
To a Millionaire
Original Text
The Poems of Archibald Lampman, ed. Duncan Campbell Scott (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1900): 276-77, as reprinted in The Poems of Archibald Lampman (including At the Long Sault), intro. by Margaret Coulby of Toronto Press, 1974).
1The world in gloom and splendour passes by,
2And thou in the midst of it with brows that gleam,
3A creature of that old distorted dream
4That makes the sound of life an evil cry.
5Good men perform just deeds, and brave men die,
6And win not honour such as gold can give,
7While the vain multitudes plod on, and live,
8And serve the curse that pins them down: But I
9Think only of the unnumbered broken hearts,
10The hunger and the mortal strife for bread,
11Old age and youth alike mistaught, misfed,
12By want and rags and homelessness made vile,
13The griefs and hates, and all the meaner parts
14That balance thy one grim misgotten pile.
Publication Start Year
1900
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997.
Rhyme
Form