A Description of the Morning by Jonathan Swift. Short summary

5 seconds

A poetic description of a dull morning. The servants, yawning, get to work, the schoolchildren walk dejectedly to school, the thieves to the prison, giving the warden some of their loot.

1 minute

A poetic description of a weekday morning.

The hired carriage rattles the unlubricated springs on the sidewalk. The servants, yawning, begin their duties: the maid fights with a mop on the porch, the journeyman goes out to clean the yard.

The air is rumbled by the bass of the coal salesman. But he is eclipsed by the cry of the chimney sweep. Lenders go to the rich houses. Street boys fumble in the gutters. Schoolboys are waddling past them, they’d like to join the homeless, but they have school to attend to.

The thieves return to prison. They must give some of the loot to the jailer. The author observes the beginning of a new joyless day from the window.