Weary and wan from door to door
    With faint and faltering tread,
  In vain for shelter I implore,
    And pine for want of bread.

  Poor Jacko! thou art hungry too;
    Thy dim and haggard eye
  Pleads more pathetically true,
    Than prayer or piercing cry.

  Poor mute companion of my toil,
    My wanderings and my woes! 
  Far have we sought this vaunted soil,
    And here our course must close.

  Chill falls the sleet; our colder clay
    Shall to the morning light,
  Stretch’d on these icy walks, betray
    The ravages of night.

  Scarce have I number’d twice seven years;
    Ah! who would covet more? 
  Or swell the lengthen’d stream of tears
    To man’s thrice measur’d score?

  Alas! they told me ’twas a land
    Of wealth and weal to all;
  And bless’d alike with bounteous hand
    The stranger and the thrall.

  A land whose golden vallies shame
    Thy craggy wilds, Savoy,
  Might well, methought, from want reclaim
    One poor unfriended boy.

  How did my young heart fondly yearn
    To greet thy treach’rous shore! 
  And deem’d the while, for home-return
    To husband up a store.

  Why did I leave my native glen
    And tune my mountain-lay,
  To colder maids and sterner men
    Than o’er our glaciers stray?

  There pity dews the manly cheek
    And heaves the bosom coy,
  That quail’d not at the giddy peak
    Which foils the fleet chamois.

  Here—­where the torrents voice would thrill
    Each craven breast with fear;
  For dumb distress or human ill
    There drops no kindred tear.

  The rushing Arc, the cold blue Rhone,
    That in their channels freeze;
  And snow-clad Cenis’ heart of stone
    Might melt ere one of these.

  Why did I loathe my lowly cot
    Where late I caroll’d free,
  Nor felt, contrasted with my lot,
    The pomp of high degree?

  Lo! where to mock the houseless head
    Huge palaces arise,
  Whose board uncharitably spread
    The unbidden guest denies.

  O for the crumbs that reckless fall
    From that superfluous board! 
  O for the warmth you gorgeous hall
    And blazing hearth afford!

  All unavailing is the prayer—­
    The proud ones pass us by;
  Their chariots roll, their torches glare
    Cold on the famish’d eye.

  And yet a little from their need
    Some poorer hands have spared: 
  And some have sighed, with little heed,
    “Alas! poor Savoyard!”

  And some have bent the churlish brow,
    And curl’d the lip of scorn;
  For they at home had brats enow,
    And beggars British-born.

  And some have scoff’d as proud to bear
    Brute heart in human shape;
  Nor drop nor morsel deign’d to share
    With alien or with ape.