University of Virginia Library

Dark darker grows. The lamps
Of London, flaring thro' the foggy damps,
Glare up and down the grey streets ghostily,
And the long roaring of loud wheels rolls by.
The huge hump-shoulder'd bridge is reach'd. She stops.
The shadowy stream beneath it slides and drops
With sulky sound between the arches old.

She eye'd it from the parapet. The cold
Clung to her, creeping up the creepy stream.
The enormous city, like a madman's dream,
Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare,
Beat on her brain. Some Tempter whisper'd
‘There,
‘Is quiet, and an end of long distress.
Leap down! leap in! One anguish more or less
In this tense tangle of tormented souls
God keeps no strict account of. The stream rolls
Forever and forever. Death is swift,
And easy.’
Then soft shadows seem'd to lift
Long arms out of the streaming dark below,
Wooingly waving to her.
But ah no,
Ah no! She is still afraid of them to-night,
Those plausible familiars! Die? What right
Is hers to die?—a mother, and a wife,
Whose love hath given hostages to life!

The voices of the shadows make reply

‘Woman, no right to live is right to die.
What right to live,—which means, what right to eat
(What thou hast ceased to earn) the bread and meat
That's not enough for all,—what unearn'd right
Hast thou to say “I choose to live?”’
With might
The mocking shadows mounted, as they spoke,
Nearer, and clearer; and their voices broke
Into a groan that mingled with the roar
Of London, growing louder evermore
With multitudes of moanings from below,
Mysterious, wrathful, miserable.
‘Ah no,
‘Ah no! For Willie waits for me at home,
And will not sleep all night till I am come.
'Tis late . . . but there were hopes of work to do:
I waited . . . tho' in vain. Ah, if he knew!
And how to meet to-morrow?’ . . .
A drunken man
Stumbled against her, stared, and then began
To troll a tavern stave, with husky voice,
(The subject coarse, the language strong, not choice)
And humming reel'd away.
Up stream'd again
The voices of the shadows, in disdain:

‘A mother? and a wife? Ill-gotten names,
Filch'd from earth's blisses to increase its shames!
What right have breadless mothers to give birth
To breadless babies? Children, meant for mirth,
And motherhood for rapture, and the bliss
Of wifehood crowning womanhood, the kiss
Of lips, whose kissing melts two lives in one:—
What right was thine, forsooth, because the sun
Is sweet in June, and blood beats high in youth,
To claim those blessings? Claim'd, what right, forsooth,
To change them into curses: craving love,
Who lackest bread? There is no room above
Earth's breast for amorous paupers. Creep below.
And hide thyself from failure!’
‘Is it so?’
She murmur'd, ‘even so! and yet . . . dear heart,
‘I meant to comfort thee!’ Then, with a start,
‘And he is sick, poor man! No work to-day . . .
No work to-morrow . . . And the rent to pay . . .
And two small mouths to feed!’ . . .
Three tiny elves
As plump as Puck, at all things and themselves
Laughing, ran by her in the rain. They were
Chubby, and rosy-cheek'd, with golden hair,
Tossing behind: two girls, a boy: they held
Each other's hands, and so contrived to weld
Their gladnesses in one. No rain, tho' chill,
Could vex their joyous ignorance of ill.
Then, sorrowfully, her thoughts began to stray
Far out of London, many a mile away
Among the meadows:
In green Hertfordshire
When lanes are white with May, the breathing briar
Wafts sweet thoughts to our spirits, if we pass
Between the hedges, and the happy grass,
Beneath, is sprinkled with the o'erblown leaves
Of wild white roses. In the long long eves
The cuckoo calls from every glimmering bower
And lone dim-lighted glade. The small church tower
Smiles kindly at the village underneath.
Ah God! once more to smell the rose's breath
Among those cottage gardens! There's a field
Past the hill-farm, hard by the little weald,
Was first to fill with cowslips every year;
The children used to play there. Could one hear
Once more that merry brook that leaves the leas
Quiet at eve, but thro' the low birch trees
Is ever noisy! Then, at nutting time
The woods are gayer than even in their prime,
And afterwards, there's something, hard to tell,
Full of home-feelings in the healthy smell
Wide over all the red plough'd uplands spread
From burning weeds, what time the woods are dead.

‘We were so young! we loved each other so!
Ah yet, . . . if one could live the winter thro’!
And winter's worst is o'er in March . . . who knows?
The times might mend.’
Then thro' her thoughts uprose
The menacing image of the imminent need
Of this bleak night.
‘Two little mouths to feed!
‘No work! . . . and Willie sick! . . . and how to pay
To-morrow's rent?’. . .
She pluck'd herself away
From the bewildering river; and again
Stray'd onwards, onwards, thro' the endless rain
Among the endless streets, with weary gait,
And dreary heart, trailing disconsolate
A draggled skirt with feeble feet slip-shod.
The sky seem'd one vast blackness without God,
Or, if a god, a god like some that here
Be gods of earth, who, missing love, choose fear
For henchman, and so rule a multitude
They have subdued, but never understood.
The roaring of the wheels began anew.
And London down its dismal vortex drew
This wandering minim of the misery
Of millions.