He finds a cottage, very poor and small,
The meanest tenement where all are mean;
Yet decency and order mark it all:—
The panes are bright, the step severely clean.
He lifts the latch—his comforter is there,
Propt in the bed, where now for weeks she stays,
Or, haply, seated knitting in her chair,
If this be one of those rare “better days.”
A tiny woman, stunted, bent, and thin;
Her features sharp with pain that always wakes;