What, but poor little urchins, whose stomachs are craving, and little old beldames in shoals;
And lice by the thousand, mosquitoes and flies? (I can’t count you the cloud as it rolls!)
Which keep humming and buzzing about one, a language denying the respite of sleep,
In a strain thus consoling—“Poor starveling, awake, tho to hunger!”—yet up you must leap!
Add to this, that you treat us with rags to our backs and a bundle of straw for a bed
(Woe betide the poor wretch on whose carcass the bugs of that ravenous pallet have fed!)
For a carpet, a rotten old mat—for a pillow, a great stone picked out of the street—
And for porridge, or bread, a mere leaf of radish, or stem of a mallow, to eat.
The head that remains of some wreck of a pitcher, by way of a seat you provide;
For the trough we make use of in kneading, we’re driven to shift with a wine barrel’s side,—