It begins with a rhetorical question asked by the poor man: “Yet though my lamp burns low dim, Though I must slave for livelihood— ;Think you that I would change with him?” ;The reader expects the answer to be no and followed with an explanation how the poor man is happy as he is and that money doesn’t bring happiness. Wrong!
The answer, “You bet I would!” ;declares a dramatic shift in the poem, which only the most prophetic reader could have anticipated. It throws Bartlett’s words