And he feasted his eyes on the fetid styes,
And his ears on the brutal oaths and cries,
Where the poor were packed and penned.
And it made his sable majesty grin,
For it needed no prophet to tell
That the seeds thus sown of sorrow and sin,
Harrowed by filthiness, watered by gin,
Would provide a rich harvest for hell.
He saw civic Dives, and some of his brood,
At a sybarite feast in the City;