Change

I used to glorify the poor,

Not simply lofty views expressing:

Their lives alone, I felt, were true,

Devoid of pomp and window-dressing.

No stranger to the manor house,

Its finery and lordly tenor,

I was a friend of down-and-outs,

And shunned the idly sponging manner.

For choosing friendship in the ranks

Of working people, though no rebel,

I had the honour to be stamped

As also one among the rabble.

The state of basements, unadorned,

Of attics with no frills or curtains

Was tangible without pretence

And full of substance, weighty, certain.

And I went bad when rot defaced

Our time, and life became infested,

When grief was censured as disgrace

And all played optimists and yes-men.

My faith in those who seemed my friends

Was broken and our ties were sundered.

I, too, lost Man, the Human, since

He had been lost by all and sundry.