Classic Poem

Winter is coming! who cares? who cares?
Not the wealthy and proud, I trow;
" Let it come, " they cry, " what matters to us
How chilly the blast may blow?

" We'll feast and carouse in our lordly halls,
The goblet of wine we'll drain;
We'll mock at the wind with shouts of mirth,
And music's echoing strain.

" Little care we for the biting frost,
While the fire gives forth its blaze;
What to us is the dreary night,
While we dance in the waxlight's rays? "

'Tis thus the rich of the land will talk;
But think! oh, ye pompous great,
That the harrowing storm ye laugh at within
Falls bleak on the poor at your gate!

They have blood in their veins, aye, pure as thine
But naught to quicken its flow; —
They have limbs that feel the whistling gale,
And shrink from the driving snow.

Winter is coming — oh! think, ye great,
On the roofless, naked, and old;
Deal with them kindly, as man with man,
And spare them a tithe of your gold!