I had the inspiration once to send an invitation
To men whose inclination would shed light on man’s condition.

There were seven men who answered; yes, into my door they entered.
Each man I now describe to you in this delineation,
A montage of men and insight into humankind’s condition.

The cook for no more reason than to get remuneration
Had catered to perfection a feast for a king’s consumption.

The poor and hungry vagrant crouched down near the door and pondered
How to make his route of exit and why he’d dared to enter.
His eyes surveyed and wandered better than the thief’s beside him.
He had come to ease the gnawing growing great in his intestines.
He languished for the darkness and to hasten his retreat
And leave us there with victual before us still uneaten.
But his empty gut betrayed a pain far greater than he felt.
So he lingered there and pondered there and sat and prayed and knelt.

Of the thief aforeto mentioned, a description I now set
The thing he wished to gain from me he did not sight as yet
So he scanned the room and plied the room as did the man beside him.
He spied the object he desired when halfway through his meat.
Through door with doorknob in his hand he made a safe retreat.

The artist who had need for bread and for association
Threaded through the gentlemen for mental stimulation.
His angled eye and crooked brow evinced his depth to feel.
A napkin took, and with his broth, at dinner sketched the meal.
He sketched the crew, he sketched the room, he sketched the stealer steal.
He found this repast best of all, sold for his next meal.

A baron, though not noble born, but made so by his wife,
Had never turned away a bill of fare in all his life,
From money never ran nor gain; and never lost his worth,
Imbibed the meal with joy and drained each loving cup with mirth.

A politician knows no enemy in any group of men
Whose ballot is unwritten and whose mind unfettered then.
He worked the room with fearless guile and sold himself to men
Who had no greater need to vote than wild boars need a pen.

A student who had studied at the university
Psychology, philosophy and physiology.
With notebook in his hand he wrote the same as I did then
About the lives of mankind and about the ways of men.
He wrote with ink the things I thought, he studied as I did.
But until now, I have within my mind these thoughts kept hid.