Bert Leston Taylor

Hence These Years

To charitable deeds I'm not addicted,
    For sentiment I do not care a prune,
And yet I weep at poverty depicted
    In any illustration or cartoon.
My heart, though flinty, beats a little faster;
    I choke, I sob, I simply have to bawl
When I behold that bit of broken plaster --
    That patch of broken plaster on the wall.

I am not touched when halted by privation,
    By frowzy tramps and hollow-chested hags,
Nor moved by the familiar illustration
    Of starvelings in exaggerated rags.
The tiny tot with toes and elbows showing,
    The widow in the super-tattered shawl
Affect me not, but one thing gets me going --
    The patch of broken plaster on the wall.

Denuded laths, forlornly emblematic
    Of penury, and hopelessness, and gloom!
I see the pallid poet in his attic,
    The seamstress in her six-by-seven room.
And like the wall my heart is always broken,
    I weep like Mr Southey's waterfall;
For always I observe that tell-tale token --
    The patch of broken plaster on the wall.

Oh sign of bitter pill and persecution!
    Oh symbol of the wolf beyond the door!
Oh hallmark of the direst destitution!
    I howl -- I've howled a thousand times
          before.
Ah, would I were a Vanderbilt or Astor! --
    I'd carry joy to every humble hall,
I'd take to each a nickel's worth of plaster --
    And patch that broken plaster on the wall.