Beggars
 
A tram came round the corner like a lion let loose,
    The driver was foaming and pounding his bell,
The heart was like death in me, watching it pass,
    And thinking of ways I had once loved too well.

The streets had a crowded, bleak scent of perfume,
    And the throng, quick and capable, shouldered me by,
And so sure of its step that my eyes filled with tears
    As I thought, “How serenely they walk, not as I!"

The gay, audy finicking soldiers went past
    With elaborate females all perfume and lace,
And only a blind beggarman and myself
    That had nowhere to go did not stir from the place.
 
He scented the hunger beside him and growled,
    But hearing no coin chink was happy with that— 
“O blind beggarman, you may well be content 
    That love's not a thing you can throw in a hat—

Or I that am even more luckless than you
    Would sit down beside you for all men to see,
And shout till I'd deafen the damsels that pass
    And toss you a penny, with ‘ Hi, look at me!—

And pity, kind Christian, and aid from your store,
    A young lad lost his girl in his twenty-fourth year, 
And little you’d dream if you'd seen him before
    Himself was the desperate youth you see here 1—
 
Oh, pity, kind Christian young lady!´ I’d shriek,
    But you, Rags-and-Bones, would earn nothing all day,
If love was a thing that the hungry could seek,
    Or the generous-hearted and young give away.”



Source: O'Connor, Frank; Three Old Brothers and Other Poems; 1936;
London; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.; p.24