Classic Poem

When skies are gray, and droops my mateless heart
Within this attic drear,
I wander forth into the restless mart,
Through labour's busy sphere,
Or thread the moist and dismal lanes,
Where poverty reveals its pains.

My wind-swept garret then a palace seems,
A tropic sun my fire,
My books a mine of bliss, while cheerly steams
The kettle's soothing choir.
My toast is made, my tea is brewed
Once more with smiling gratitude.

So I, comparing mine with sadder stars,
Thus magnify its light,
Which seems to those encaged by misery's bars
With happiest lustre bright;
The lot of captive, drudge, or slave
Is brighter far, beside the grave,

Than mine, compared with that by them deplored,
Or than the grander fate
Of Crœsus, revelling amidst his hoard,
A king without a state,—
Though for his standard taketh he
The measure of my poverty.