University of Virginia Library


308

V.

She sits at home in lordly palaces,
With glowing eyes, and flowing, vine-wreathed hair,
And dainty, white-rose body left half bare;
And they who find life glad and full of ease
Make love to her, and sweet she is to these;
And they who know the blackness of despair
Turn to her, seeing she is surely fair,
And from their pain she gives them swift release.
The same she is who walks the populous street,
A painted, brazen harlot without shame;
But all her lovers, poor and rich, shall meet
There where she leads them, — where in lurid flame
Those gone before her fiery kiss entreat,
Gnash teeth, and dying execrate her name.