Tichborne's elegy

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made:
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

-Chidiock Tichborne, 1586 

Tichborne was tried and executed for treason against Queen Elizabeth in 1586.He was eviscerated,hanged and quartered .This poem was supposedly written on the eve of his execution.He was twenty-eight.

Urban poverty in New York of the late nineteenth century

Jacob Riis was the author of How the other half lives , a series of photographs that captured the squalor of Lower East Side of Manhattan of the 1880's ,in what is now considered a pioneering attempt at photojournalism.The images must have been far more shocking and compelling then, for modern readers have been  de-sensitized  to photos that depict extreme poverty.Some of the photos are reminiscent of  pictures from Auschwitz.It's strange to imagine that  the descendants of these mostly European immigrants are probably regular New Yorkers today.

Photograph titled 'five cents a spot',referring to the  price for a place to sleep on the floor of a tenement.

Children  sleeping in Mulberry Street(1890)