I used to glorify the poor, <br />Not simply lofty views expressing: <br />Their lives alone, I felt, were true, <br />Devoid of pomp and window-dressing. <br /> <br />No stranger to the manor house, <br />Its finery and lordly tenor, <br />I was a friend of down-and-outs, <br />And shunned the idly sponging manner. <br /> <br />For choosing friendship in the ranks <br />Of working people, though no rebel, <br />I had the honour to be stamped <br />As also one among the rabble. <br /> <br />The state of basements, unadorned, <br />Of attics with no frills or curtains <br />Was tangible without pretence <br />And full of substance, weighty, certain. <br /> <br />And I went bad when rot defaced <br />Our time, and life became infested, <br />When grief was censured as disgrace <br />And all played optimists and yes-men. <br /> <br />My faith in those who seemed my friends <br />Was broken and our ties were sundered. <br />I, too, lost Man, the Human, since <br />He had been lost by all and sundry.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/change-242/
