A few minutes later the thin voice of the almshouse clock said twelve, and away walked Mr. Glennie without his usual 'Good day, children', and there was the sole left lying on the dusty floor in front of his desk.

They stood aside to let us go by, the boys pulling their caps and the girls dropping a curtsy, when they knew that it was a poor drowned body passing; and as I saw the children I thought I saw myself among them, and I was no more a man, but just come out from Mr. Glennie's teaching in the old almshouse hall.

The poem is divided into twenty-four cantos or sections, written as "Letters" to an imaginary correspondent who had bidden the writer "describe the borough," each dealing with its separate topicprofessions, trades, sects in religion, inns, strolling players, almshouse inhabitants, and so forth.