Davies writes with open sympathy about people who have nothing: no beds, no warm human contact, no relief from illness or hunger. They lie on cold stone, cough and suffer, and seem utterly alone. The speaker’s pity is direct — he calls them poor, heartbroken, helpless — and his sorrow comes through in details like “tear at iron railings,” which suggests pain so constant it becomes physical desperation. The only bright face they know is the sun; human faces are cold and dark. The mood is bleak and solemn, full of compassion and quiet outrage. It makes the reader feel the isolation of poverty, where a person’s own shadow is their only companion and night is measured by the harsh tones of clocks.
The Helpless — Summary
Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed To hear at night the clocks' hard tones; They have no beds to warm their limbs, But with those limbs must warm cold stones; Those poor weak men, whose coughs and ailings Force them to tear at iron railings. Those helpless men that starve, my pity; Whose waking day is never done; Who, save for their own shadows, are Doomed night and day to walk alone: They know no bright face but the sun's, So cold and dark are human ones.