Poor Kings

God's pity on poor kings,
    They know no gentle rest;
The North and South cry out,
    Cries come from East and West,
"Come, open this new Dock,
    Building, Bazaar or Fair."
Lord, what a wretched life
    Such men must bear.

They're followed, watched and spied,
    No liberty they know;
Some eye will watch them still,
    No matter where they go.
When in green lanes I muse,
    Alone, and hear birds sing,
God's pity then, say I,
    On some poor king.

William Henry Davies

William Henry Davies was a Welsh poet and writer, best known for his poetry depicting tramp life and the natural world. Davies spent much of his life as a wanderer in the UK and the USA. Despite his lifestyle, he became one of the most popular poets of his time, with works including 'Leisure', which begins with the famous lines, 'What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'. His autobiography, 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp', details his adventures and is considered a classic.

William Henry Davies

Children At Play

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

My Youth

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

Winter's Beauty

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

The Truth

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Helpless

Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed
To hear at night the clocks' hard tones;
They have no beds to warm their limbs,
But with those limbs must warm cold stones;
Those poor weak men, whose coughs and ailings
Force them to tear at iron railings.

Those helpless men that starve, my pity;
Whose waking day is never done;
Who, save for their own shadows, are
Doomed night and day to walk alone:
They know no bright face but the sun's,
So cold and dark are human ones.

William Henry Davies

The Heap Of Rags

One night when I went down
Thames' side, in London Town,
A heap of rags saw I,
And sat me down close by.
That thing could shout and bawl,
But showed no face at all;
When any steamer passed
And blew a loud shrill blast,
That heap of rags would sit
And make a sound like it;
When struck the clock's deep bell,
It made those peals as well.
When winds did moan around,
It mocked them with that sound;
When all was quiet, it
Fell into a strange fit;
Would sigh, and moan and roar,
It laughed, and blessed, and swore.
Yet that poor thing, I know,
Had neither friend nor foe;
Its blessing or its curse
Made no one better or worse.
I left it in that place,
The thing that showed no face,
Was it a man that had
Suffered till he went m...

William Henry Davies

Alton Locke's Song

Weep, weep, weep and weep,
    For pauper, dolt, and slave!
Hark! from wasted moor and fen,
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men -
    Work! or the grave!

Down, down, down and down,
    With idler, knave, and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will not live by toil
Has no right on English soil!
    God's word's our warrant!

Up, up, up and up!
    Face your game and play it!
The night is past, behold the sun!
The idols fall, the lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
    Who shall stay it?

On Torridge, May 1849.

Charles Kingsley

The Broken Men

For things we never mention,
For Art misunderstood,
For excellent intention
That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
From clouds we would not clear,
Beyond the Law's pursuing
We fled, and settled here.

We took no tearful leaving,
We bade no long good-byes.
Men talked of crime and thieving,
Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
'Twas time and time to go,
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
Ahead lay Callao!

The widow and the orphan
That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings
(They scan the shipping still),
And that's your Christian people
Returning good for ill!

God bless the thoughtful islands

Rudyard

Return To Nature

My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,
While others sleep on hard, cold stones
That suck away their bodies' heat.
Where men are drunk in every street;
Men full of poison, like those flies
That still attack the horses' eyes.
Where some men freeze for want of cloth,
While others show their jewels' worth
And dress in satin, fur or silk;
Where fine rich ladies wash in milk,
While starving mothers have no food
To make them fit in flesh and blood;
So that their watery breasts can give
Their babies milk and make them live.
Where one man does the work of four,
And dies worn out before his hour;
While some s...

William Henry Davies

Cowslips And Larks

I hear it said yon land is poor,
In spite of those rich cowslips there -
And all the singing larks it shoots
To heaven from the cowslips' roots.
But I, with eyes that beauty find,
And music ever in my mind,
Feed my thoughts well upon that grass
Which starves the horse, the ox, and ass.
So here I stand, two miles to come
To Shapwick and my ten-days-home,
Taking my summer's joy, although
The distant clouds are dark and low,
And comes a storm that, fierce and strong,
Has brought the Mendip hills along:
Those hills that when the light is there
Are many a sunny mile from here.

William Henry Davies