Crouch'd on the pavement close by Belgrave Square <br />A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; <br />A babe was in her arms, and at her side <br />A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. <br />Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, <br />Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied <br />Across, and begg'd and came back satisfied. <br />The rich she had let pass with frozen stare. <br />Thought I: Above her state this spirit towers; <br />She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, <br />Of sharers in a common human fate. <br />She turns from that cold succour, which attneds <br />The unknown little from the unknowing great, <br />And points us to a better time than ours.<br /><br />Matthew Arnold<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/west-london/
