WHOSE are Windsor and Hampton, the pride of the land, With their treasures and trophies so varied and grand? The Queen's, you reply: Deuce a bit! you and I Through their gates, twice a week, making privileged way, Tread their gilded saloons, View their portraits, cartoons, And, like Crusoe, are monarchs of all we survey. And whose are our nobles' magnificent homes, With their galleries, gardens, their statues and domes? His Grace's, my Lord's? Ay, in law and in words, But in fact they are ours, for the master, poor wight! Gladly leaving their view To the visiting crew, Keeps a dear exhibition for others' delight. And whose are the stag-haunted parks, the domains, The woods and the waters, the hills and the plains? Yours and mine, for our eyes Daily make them our prize: What more have their owners? -- The care and the cost! Alas! for the great, Whose treasures and state, Unprized when possessed, are regretted when lost. When I float on the Thames, or am whisked o'er the roads, To the numerous royal and noble abodes Whose delights I may share, Without ownership's care, With what pity the titled and rich I regard, And exultingly cry, Oh! how happy am I To be only a poor unpatrician bard! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NICHARCHUS UPON PHIDON HIS DOCTOR by EZRA POUND DESERT FLOWERS by KEITH CASTELLAINE DOUGLAS THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW BY THE SALPETRIERE by THOMAS ASHE TO TWO BEREAVED by THOMAS ASHE LOVE'S WISDOM by ALFRED AUSTIN |