A square, squat room (a cellar on promotion), <br />Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight; <br />Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware; <br />Scissors and lint and apothecary's jars. <br /> <br />Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from, <br />Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted: <br />Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach, <br />While at their ease two dressers do their chores. <br /> <br />One has a probe-it feels to me a crowbar. <br />A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone. <br />A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers. <br />Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/waiting-373/
