Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

Though they call him the “Demon” he's mildest of men,
With a dash
Of politeness that sets off the wen
Of the gutter spread out like a horrible splash
From his head to his heel,
On his watch-chain of steel;
And his eyes are the softest cerulean blue
That betray not a clue
Of his grimy possessions
Though he lives under decent society's ban
Among grievous transgressions—
Yet he's “Demon” Dan.

But this is the quintessence of Whitechapel wit
And the slums,
To affix a wrong name that will sit
Like false beacons, and style clever fingers all thumbs;
For the “Demon” is mild
As an innocent child,
And peeps forth from his gloom and in wondering love,
As the azure above
From the clouds in their courses;
Just as if a strayed infant, with never a plan,
Gazed out on hell forces—
Yet he's “Demon” Dan.

How he reached that Inferno I truly can't guess—
It is odd;
For beneath his dark Whitechapel dress,
There's a heart that believes in a heaven and God—
There's the quivering spire
Of an upmounting fire—
There's the beating of wings of an infinite trust,
In a desert of dust;
Though he knows not a letter
And subsides with strange pals in a prisoning span
And goes clanking a fetter—
He's not “Demon” Dan.

512

And he is fully as honest as you with his toil,
I can vow;
For that dim disrespectable soil
Has no home in his breast, if it shadows his brow;
For the shavings off spars
And the ends of cigars,
With the tags and the rags and the refuse of bones
He collects from the stones;
Though he shuns soap and water
And once heaved half a brick at mad “Hallelu” Ann,
While he keeps the rogue's quarter—
He's not “Demon” Dan.