Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

London

West London

By Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

CROUCHED on the pavement close by Belgrave Square,

A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied;

A babe was in her arms, and at her side

A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.

Some laboring men, whose work lay somewhere there,

Passed opposite; she touched her girl, who hied

Across, and begged, and came back satisfied.

The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.

Thought I: Above her state this spirit towers;

She will not ask of aliens, but of friends,

Of sharers in a common human fate.

She turns from that cold succor which attends

The unknown little from the unknowing great,

And points us to a better time than ours.