Poverty Grass Poem by David Lewis Paget

Wild horses we
Pricked at the wind,
Never to know, alas;
That all the lord of our fortunes bought
For us
Was poverty grass.

Poverty grass
The paupered seed
So sickly poor, alas;
The souls of the great untamed grow weak
Despair
On poverty grass.

And you, my friend,
Grew sick awhile,
And cried and cried, alas;
While I grew fat on a flowering weed
Called pride
And poverty grass.

And when you left
The field to me
I almost died, alas;
For I was left in a fallow field
Piled high
In poverty grass.

Wild horses we
Pricked at the wind,
Never to know, alas;
That all the lord of our fortunes bought
For us
Was poverty grass.

24 January 1980