Women must weep :: :: University of Virginia Library

Women of England, wives and mothers,
Who modest are and brave,
True to your God, yourselves, and others
Laid lower than the slave;
Pure, but unfettered in your action,
And not with prudes' pretence,
Whose armour is no figleaf fraction,
But your own innocence;
England would have you do your duty,
But not at Fashion's call,
In love which builds new worlds of beauty,
By raising souls that fall.

PREFACE.

Time that stronghold breaks as straw,
Levels monarch with the mime,
Limits flowers and winter rime,
Shows the fairness, shields the flaw—
Gathers fruits from frozen clime,
Honey out of lion's jaw,
Rings for each a passing chime,
Rounding meanest things with awe;
This, on breasts that devils draw
Hellward in their virgin prime,
Soft hath laid the sweeter law,
Love, that liveth not for time.

Verses, that were wrung by ire,
In the rush of righteous hate,
At the poison of the State,
Preying, within bed of mire,
On the fallen and their fate—
Words, that leap'd like flaming fire,
Time beginning holier date,
Now hath soften'd, though the dire
Memory of the souls for hire,
Still endures—if Mercy late,
Grudged by court and sacred spire,
Opens now the prisoner's gate.

Something, something, hath been wrought
By the hands that history make,
When they still the starving ache,
When the cup is kindly brought,
Which the thirsty lip may slake;
But the battle must be fought

On, lest noble spirits break,
That have suffer'd sore for nought,
And redemption vainly sought,
Fetter'd to their fiery stake;
Till, in burst of beauteous thought,
England's better self awake.

But what laws efface the smart,
Deeper than the hunger's brand,
Or the bite of iron band,
Piercing like a venom'd dart?
Lifted, how shall woman stand,
Who is still denied a part
In the blessing of the land?
Freed, yet by what earthly art
Can she as a sister start,
With her feet on sinking sand,
If we open not our heart,
Give her not a brother's hand?

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“HAVE WE NOT ALL ONE FATHER?”

One heaven is over all,
One earth beneath our feet,
One gospel bids us with its call
Within one temple meet;
One heart, that cannot rest
Below its native stars,
Is prison'd in each human breast,
And beats against its bars;
Folly may sated be
With falsehood's glittering wraith,
And knaves have many gods, but we
One Father and one faith.

The publican who stands
Nor dares upraise his head,
But lifts the soil'd and sorrowing hands
In prayer for living bread;
Dives with painted roof,
In court or reverend see,
Who in his purple pride aloof
Plays the old Pharisee;
Though this conceal his shame,
And that no pity find,
Yet both from one Creator came,
And have one tempted mind.

The Pariah, with the stain
Upon her woman's brow,
Who bears alone the curse and pain
From someone's broken vow;
The Peeress in her lace,
Who hides the brand within,
And while she flaunts a modest face
Yet hugs her splendid sin;

viii

Both, in their different lines,
Have one weak, erring will,
And for them both God's mercy shines,
And sisters are they still.

The humblest and most high,
If some may lowly count,
Both send to God one earthly sigh,
Both drink one heavenly fount;
And should the world be cold,
Or trust be sorely tried,
For all expands a common fold,
For all one Brother died;
Yea, though the Levite blame,
And priests their thunders roll,
The outcast with the harlot frame
May have a virgin soul.

The drudge with fingers seam'd,
Who sweeps the dusty room,
On whom no hope has ever gleam'd,
And early marked for doom;
Who never knew her flesh
Was sanctuary of the Lord,
And falls in the first easy mesh,
To glut the hangman's cord;
Is one with jewell'd sloth,
That dresses, dances, sings,
Swears endless love and breaks its troth,
Meant for eternal things.

The daughter of the earth,
Who savours of the soil,
From the grim failing fight with dearth,
Unsex'd by beast-like toil;
Who once has fallen, and yet
Chafes at the abhorrèd chain,
And from her shroud of black regret
Would rise and bloom again,
Is one with purest saint,
Who steadfast always stood,
If soul and body reek with taint,
In one great brotherhood.

WOMEN MUST WEEP.

THE DIVINE COMMISSION.

In the love of the risen Saviour rise,
In the name of the Living Lord,
With the might of His mercy calm and wise,
And put on the soldier's sword;
Thou must cut the victim's cord,
Thou must be to the blind and stumbling, eyes,
And reveal to the sad the laughing skies,
Which a lamp to all afford,
And their roses blue accord
To the meanest wretch, nor yet despise
The tottering step that death defies,
If it may but be restored.

In the grace of the suffering Saviour go,
Baptised in the wounds that bled,
In the tears that from His human woe
He has so Divinely shed;
To the sinners lust has wed,
And the passion ravening to and fro,
As its waves of doom devouring flow,
On the pathway He has led;
For He stood by the corpse's bed,
And across the deluge stretched His bow—
Yea, He stands by the sorrowing now as low,
He remains when hope has fled.

In the gifts of the healing Saviour hark
To the cry that never stays—
That goes up in its anguish from the dark,
And makes dim the sweetest days;
He has trod those dreadful ways,
With the nameless sights we dare not mark,

Though they fringe the palace and the park,
And intrude on feasting's rays;
For, behold, thy sister prays—
Not for pity that denies its ark,
But will heed the petted lap-dog's bark,
And be deaf to crime that slays.

In the strength of the conquering Saviour fight,
For the battle rages yet,
In the cause of holy heavenly right,
Though the hosts of hell have met;
For the wither'd cheeks are wet,
And the backs are broken in the plight
Which has dragged them helpless thro' the night,
In which every star is set;
For the bosoms heave and fret,
That the brows may still again be bright,
In the life of Love's transforming light,
When the dead their graves forget.

GOD'S MAN.

I will arise, and play a human part,
As one who feels he has a human place;
Where'er I find a sufferer on the mart,
Or at the mill, there is a brother's face;
Where'er outstretch'd for help I see one hand,
And the old earthly passions thrilling,
There is the post of honour, there I stand—
God willing.

I will arise, and strive to do some deeds
That may illumine some forgotten grave;
Where'er I note a woman's heart that bleeds,
There do I hail a sister I may save;
Where'er I meet the brave and better choice,
That takes the soldier's fiery drilling,
And flies from shame, I join a comrade's voice—
God willing.

I will arise, and gather up my arms,
The breath that burning is, the song that slays
Goliath evils, and unveils the charms
That are the light of all heroic days.
Where'er I hear the feeblest cry for aid,
From broken urns that life are spilling;
There, even to death, my duty's path is laid—
God willing.

I will arise, and hasten to the fight,
Which ever rages round the low and weak;
Unto the blind these eyes shall carry sight,
And for the dumb these loving lips shall speak.
If ever-drudging shoulders feebly droop
Beneath their burden, in the weary tilling;
Then be my joy with struggling frames to stoop—
God willing.

I will arise, and launch into the deep,
Tempestuous though it be, my tiny craft—
Yea, on the waves of woe that never sleep,
And all I ask is suffering for my draught.
Whene'er the winds are high, and billows beat
The foundering bark they fast are filling;
Then on the billows too shall be my seat—
God willing.

I will arise, and labour while I may,
And do the simple service that I can;
Let fools and cowards spend themselves in play,
I will not mock the dignity of man.
Though leaps the furnace with the hottest fire,
Which tortured souls is hourly killing;
There is my portion, there my chief desire—
God willing.

I will arise, and sow the living seed,
Which hath its soil in every humble mind
Till shine from barren care and stony need
The golden sheaves that angel-reapers bind.

The moments fleet, it is not ever day,
And breasts are bruisèd past our skilling;
Lost children miss me, and I cannot stay—
God willing.

I will arise, and choose that royal throne,
Which is the lowliest in a world of pain;
By the dark bed of those that weep alone,
And in the storm when timbers crack and strain.
I hunger for the weary forms, that fall
Fordone in iron moil and milling,
Babes that but for a cup of water call—
God willing.

I will arise, and be myself a part
Of all the grief that makes the stoutest bend;
I thirst for helpless pilgrims brave to start,
But impotent to reach their journey's end.
Earth was not meant for idle shame or show,
The drunkard's feast, the harlot's frilling.
The blasts that lash shall yet to victory blow—
God willing.

I will arise, I may not linger yet,
While men and women die around me thick;
While brothers do their brothers' wrongs forget,
And pulses that throb still are sad and sick;
While ghastly dens of toil send up their surge,
Black froth of sorrow that craves stilling;
And welcome to my back the bloody scourge—
God willing.

I will arise, for work is long and hard,
And time is but the passing of a breath;
While everywhere is sin, and sin is strong,
And hope seems hopeless in the face of death.
Albeit I know that love is mightier far,
Immortal life in deeds instilling;
And I would glorious make the scornèd scar—
God willing.

I will arise, to suffer is to be;
For every sigh that upward mounts is mine;
Yea, every stroke that harms descends on me,
And as my own at every pang I pine;
And all I have and am I only owe,
Unto the last poor crust and shilling;
My brothers cry—I will arise and go—
God willing.

THE HOLY WAR.

Not a trump has spoken still,
Not a banner still is spread,
Not a sword unsheath'd for good or ill,
Not a sound of armèd tread;
Not a watch-fire on the beaconing hill,
To proclaim the battle's iron will,
Which the toilers scared have read,
As they wind the weary thread;
Not a moment's pause to labour's skill,
With the broken staff of bread;
Not a drop of blood may the warfare spill,
Though it buries heaps of dead.

Not the curses, grim and deep,
Not the hate of hostile bands,
But the blessing of the eyes that weep,
And the grip of brother-hands;
Not the wolf descending on the sheep,
And the tears that pillows troubled steep,
And the awful fire that brands—
But the love that patient stands;
Not the threats that guardians wakeful keep,
On the field and fencèd strands,
But the smiles that through their sadness peep,
Like the sun on new-born lands.

Not the hid or open blow,
As when stubborn foemen strive—
But the kiss of pardon, which would throw
A veil on the prison gyve;

Not the clouds that let no rosebud grow,
With the storms that on the weakest blow,
And the helmless wreckage drive,
While they make the wicked thrive,
But the loyal hearts that leap and glow,
And in seas of darkness dive;
That the jewel drown'd they yet may show
Is a soul with God alive.

Not a taking of the dear,
But a giving to the spent,
In the fray that draws the orphan near,
And the faces dumbly bent;
Not a hoisting of the flag of fear,
And a shaking of the shadowy spear,
But the gospel's holy tent,
With many a glorious rent;
And the hallow'd flame that shines most clear,
Within alleys pale and pent,
When all heaven comes down to abysses drear,
To embrace one penitent.

THE WHITE CROSS.

Carry the White Cross high,
Carry the White Cross low,
Till it soothes the orphan's feeble sigh,
And gives back a heavenly glow—
Till it brings the help undream'd of nigh,
And the tears of gladness flow;
Carry it up,
Carry it down,
To the palace where the betrayers sup,
And the woman with soilèd gown—
Till it break the deadly golden cup,
And the head of shame discrown.

Carry the White Cross forth,
Carry it to the drouth
That is pining in the bitter north,
And is bleeding in the south—

Where the maiden has not maiden's worth,
And despair has sealed her mouth;
Carry it still,
Carry it yet,
To the cursèd haunt of the ravening ill,
Where the eyes are dim and wet,
And the dark hands slay, though they cannot kill,
With the woes that none forget.

Carry the White Cross on,
Carry it to the East,
To the courts where never sunlight shone,
And the very man is beast—
To the alleys from which hope is gone,
In which devils hold their feast;
Carry it well,
Carry it true,
For each hour you lose is the dying knell
Of some soul that will vainly rue
Just that saving glimpse, from its home in hell,
With the blessèd gleam of blue.

Carry the White Cross now,
Carry it fresh and wide,
In the strength of your consecration's vow,
That is more than human pride,
With the dew of baptism on your brow,
And the Brother at your side;
Carry it far,
Carry it near,
For its power will rend the prisoner's bar,
And its light transform the fear,—
It will hide the worst, most ugly scar,
When it draws the outcast near.

Carry the White Cross brave,
Carry it to the end,
Let its holy shelter proudly wave
On the trampled forms that bend,
Till it stands upon every ghastly grave

And the souls long dead ascend;
Carry it fair,
Carry it free,
Let it kiss the wild deflowered hair,
And uplift the bowing knee,
Till it falls on the fatal dungeon-stair,
And the shades arise and flee.

BETWEEN THE BANKS.

I stood on the Bridge of a City
That holds the world in fee;
And the river's dolorous ditty
Went sobbing to the sea.

And the wind now mute, now moaning,
Seem'd full of a voiceless pain;
As if set to a sad atoning,
As if charged with a bitter bane.

O my heart was sorely troubled,
And my eyes were dim with tears;
For the labours lost or doubled
By the ever-darkening years.

I stood, in the misty morning,
Between the river's banks;
As it sped like a spirit, scorning
The taint of the passing ranks.

There were souls in those sickly masses,
That had bruised and broken wings;
Yet in dreadful straits and passes
Had attained to God-like things.

Lo, around me roll'd the thunder
Of a hundred hurrying feet;
And below—was the water's wonder,
With its still and steadfast beat.

But the living breasts had pulsings,
That tender were and true;
That in grief and grim convulsings
Were great to dare and do.

The faces, calm and cheerful,
That lightly met the day;
Were but marks of bodings fearful,
And of early youth grown grey.

And I measured the future chances,
For the lives that then would be;
And I robed in my radiant fancies,
The land from sea to sea.

But the crowds pour'd fast and faster,
And their murmurs burst my trance;
And the waves of life wax'd vaster,
As if whirl'd in a deathful dance.

On the one side throbbed the Passions
Of a mighty people's marts;
On the other slept the Fashions,
With their false and foolish arts.

Should I join the toilful clamour,
And the dusty drudging throng?
Should I court the thrilling glamour,
Of the frolic dance and song?

I was rich, as the world counts riches,
I was young and strong and free;
And where are the earthly hitches
But give to a golden key?

Ah, the hands of Sirens beckon'd,
And their breath on my brow was hot;
Red lips their pleasures reckon'd,
With the pangs of a slaving lot.

Their glowing arms enwound me,
And their curls they kiss'd my cheek;
They wove their meshes round me,
Till I waver'd faint and weak.

They offer'd me fruits and blossoms,
With all that is fresh and sweet;
They open'd their restful bosoms,
And they cleansed my sullied feet.

And away from the bowers of Fashion
There floated a fragrant air,
As if sent by some pure compassion,
With a message fond and fair,

Like the waft of wondrous spices,
Or the beat of gorgeous wings,
That the seaman's sense entices,
To bright forbidden things.

And I felt as a seaman drifting
To an Island dim and strange;
With the views and voices shifting,
To a blest and beauteous change.

But I look'd on the haggard faces,
As they flitted to and fro;
And I thought of the pensive places,
With their pallid wealth of woe.

I look'd on the lordly mansions,
And their chambers rich and rare;
And I match'd their proud expansions
Against hunger's gaunt despair.

I look'd at the palace gardens,
With their smooth and smiling mien;
And I knew how hatred hardens,
Behind the painted scene.

I look'd on the weary waters,
As they hasten'd to their goal;
As forth from its earthly quarters
Flies the disimprisoned soul.

I look'd at the shrouded morrow,
And I saw no kindly sun;
But a weight of doubt and sorrow,
In the vapours dense and dun.

I look'd in my heart for pity,
And found it warm and mild;
And I mourn'd for the Mighty City,
As a father o'er his child.

Was there never a ray of blessing
To come down on that dismal den,
Where the smoke beat black and pressing
On the faces of fever'd men?

There the dying knew no leisure,
And the suckling fed on vice;
Yea, the dirt gave up its treasure,
And the dead man had his price.

There the father slew the mother,
And the mother slew her boy;
One prey'd upon the other,
But no one dream'd of joy.

I stood on the Bridge of a City
That holds the world in fee;
And the river's plaintive ditty
Went wailing to the sea.

But the stream of life was stronger,
That moved and murmur'd round;
Growing deeper still and longer,
With a wild and solemn sound.

The wind had gather'd sadness,
With a short and sharper gust;
And it howl'd like a thing in madness,
As it drove the darkening dust.

Upstarting like the prisoned,
Crept creatures pinch'd and wried;
And the children old and wizen'd,
To heaven for mercy cried.

There were figures faint and jaded,
With features pale and spent;
There were forms forlorn and faded,
That writhed as they turn'd and bent.

There were beings scarcely mortal—
They seem'd worn so wan with woe—
That crawl'd to the grave's grim portal,
With tortured steps and slow.

There were women leaf-like shaken,
In their hopeless, helpless wrack;
By foul hands that all had taken,
And had nothing given back.

There were children, six or seven,
Who low and lower fell;
With the eyes yet lit from heaven,
And the voices tuned by hell.

There were victims of amusement,
Just the playthings of an hour;
In the blind and blank confusement,
Which bestows on ill its power.

And the daily, deadly sorrow
Of the outrage without end,
With a dark and darker morrow,
Importuned me for its friend.

For I saw the tear-drops glisten,
On the hollow hunted face;
And the ear so strain'd to listen,
And to find a hiding-place.

Yea, I knew the common story,
That is every moment new;
Which had robbed their heaven of glory,
And their earth of summer dew.

And I knew the weak were driven
Into pitfalls by the strong;
And how trustful hearts were riven,
By irreparable wrong.

And I knew that scorn was fuel
To the furnace of their fate;
And man's mercy was more cruel
Than his injury or hate.

Then I cast my lot with the mourners,
And I join'd the suffering band;
Till a light in the lonely corners
Shone round my helping hand.

Should I dole the entrusted treasures
That a fairer fortune brought?
Should I stint my larger measures,
When in other hands was naught?

O there beams a benediction
On the sacrificial gift;
And the clouds of dark affliction,
At the glance of kindness lift.

Thus I strove for those fallen creatures,
As a man may strive for life;
And a change on the sullen features
Arose from the holy strife.

On the brows there came a glory,
In the eyes there grew a gleam;
Like the spell of a winter story,
Like the charm of a summer-dream.

And the lips long silent kindled
With the smile of conscious might;
And the cares and troubles dwindled,
In a purpose brave and bright.

Lo, the widow'd mothers bless'd me,
And the orphans pluck'd me flowers;
While the songs of love caress'd me,
Through the soft melodious hours.

And the fount of faith was present,
As waters sweet and shy,
In the pastures pure and pleasant,
Where the shadows ever lie.

And the stream of deeds of kindness
Went sparkling far and wide;
And the blighted spots of blindness,
They bloom'd in the soothing tide.

I beheld the joy of labour,
And I felt the glow of rest;
As each man help'd his neighbour,
And no man grudged his best.

I stood in the morning's splendour,
Between the river's banks;
And a tale that was glad and tender
I read in the passing ranks,

The wind had a happy burden,
As it piped in the summer sun;
Like a soul that has gain'd its guerdon,
When the time of toil is run.

I stood on the Bridge of a City
That holds the world in fee;
And the river's laughing ditty
Went singing to the sea.

THE BLACK COUNTREE.

There's a far, far land,
And yet it is as near
As the waving of a hand,
Or the dropping of a tear,
When the tempest talks in fear,
And the winds in wonder stand;
Ah, with language clear,
Though you cannot hear,
It would tell of prisoner's galling band,
And the shadow of a shameful brand,
With the secrets whisper'd in the ear,
As they fall like curses that command,
Upon bosoms all unfree;
And this is the Black Countree.

There's a lone, lone place,
And yet it is as pent
As the dungeon's evil space,
With its captives bound and blent,
In their iron sorrow bent,
But it hath no friendly face;

And with spirit spent,
Through the ghastly rent
Of the ragged wall that lichens lace,
And the moulds that leave a leprous trace,
For the voice not theirs they hark intent,
And the vision they may not embrace
They would look, who never see;
And this is the Black Countree.

There's a dark, dark spot,
And yet within the sun,
Of which midnight is the lot,
Though the founts of glory run,
If they only blast or shun
The poor court or filthy cot;
And the oaths that stun,
As in devil's fun,
Go from children's lips and lives they blot,
Where the weeds of vileness rest and rot,
And love is a tale to be begun,
When the endless hate that reigns is not,
While the clouds arise and flee;
And this is the Black Countree.

There's a grim, grim fold,
Where the forms are ever black,
And the fences sternly hold,
Though they tumbled lie in wrack;
And no footstep issues back,
Which has trod those pastures old;
Not an outward track
From the hideous lack,
Though the paths be paved with miry gold,
Nor warmth where the bosoms all are cold,
Nor speed when the kindly arm is slack,
And no help if vice alone is bold;
Hangs dead leaf on dead tree,
And this is the Black Countree.

There's a sad, sad bound,
And yet it open lies;
For but sighing is the sound,
And the teardrop never dries,
And beneath the brazen skies
They must tramp the dreary round;
And with staring eyes,
From which promise flies,
Must the victim toil, hunted and hound,
Over haunted, hopeless, corpse-strewn ground,
To the doom, foreseen, till he drops and dies,
And the shovel heaps up one more mound;
For the rocks are on the lee,
And this is the Black Countree.

A WOMAN'S HEART.

It was lofty, large, and sweet,
It was broad and bright;
All the graces seem'd to meet
In one lovely light—
In one glorious sight;
Never poet's wildest fancy fleet,
Dared in vision thus to grasp or greet
Forms of heavenly height,
Beautiful and bright;
Never heart that human beat,
Hand of mortal might,
Dream'd or built such blessed seat
In such earthly plight.

It was framed of fairy dew,
Sunshine soft and fire;
Winds on man that never blew,
In his brutal ire—
Winds that never tire,
Which from Paradise above it drew
Fragrant spice, and living freshness threw
Over shadows dire,

Kiss'd it without hire;
Angels, that around it flew,
Raised it from the mire,
Wrought it jubilant and new,
Bade it still aspire.

Never temple rose so glad,
In the morning ray;
Never tower such glimpses had
Of the endless Day,
On this beaten way;
Soar'd, reproaching thus whate'er was bad,
Witness stood against all worship mad
Paid to passing clay,
Higher call'd to pray;
Fashion'd from the foolish lad,
Hero crown'd with bay;
Turn'd the bosom, sere and sad,
Most divinely gay.

Never breathed a house a spell
Like a woman's heart;
Never fane thus lowly fell
From exalted start,
Bought upon the mart;
Dim, defiled, and shrunk as hermit cell,
Base and colder than the coffin-shell,
Fooled with wicked art,
Stabb'd by every dart;
Yet, though sunk in very hell,
Torn from social chart,
God in it again shall dwell,
No more to depart.

ON THE THRESHOLD.

Led on by the lure of their tossing arms,
By the spell of their splendid hair,
And the bosoms half unbare,

I follow'd the flight of their radiant charms,
Through the sad and sultry air—
Through the sad and sultry air;
I had follow'd them on through a hundred harms,
And found them still more fair.

I follow'd the steps of the Bacchant band,
Through a maze with roses red,
With the dew on my face and head—
The dew flung back by the careless hand
Of the beautiful girls that fled—
Of the beautiful girls that fled;
And my heated lips were lightly fann'd,
By the breath of their tender tread.

The stars came out with a trembling gleam,
And a gentle wind awoke
In the shades of a cavern'd oak,
That started to life from its summer-dream,
That nodded its brows, and spoke—
That nodded its brows, and spoke
Of the passions drown'd in the passing stream,
And the hearts that loved and broke.

While afar the tempest raised its crest,
And a deepening darkness cast,
Like the curse of a sinful past;
And the mighty tree from its hoary rest
Gave its burden up at last—
Gave its burden up at last;
And the gusts on its groaning branches prest,
Till the breeze became a blast.

But little I reck'd of the ancient tale,
That the ancient babbler told;
For I saw the glance of gold,
The glittering hair that sought the gale,
From the women bright and bold—
From the women bright and bold;
Like a vessel, urged with many a sail,
On an ocean dim and old.

Drawn on by the dance of their glowing limbs,
And the pulse of their fiery feet—
By a vision wild and fleet,
Entranced by the eye that swoons and swims,
In the dew of a rapture sweet—
In the dew of a rapture sweet;
Bewitch'd by the cries of the Bacchic hymns,
That burst in a bliss complete.

And I heard the call of the plaintive dove
From the depths of the myrtle sheaves
And the clinging ivy leaves;
Yet I felt but the wave of a mighty love,
But the wave that throbs and heaves—
But the wave that throbs and heaves;
That drags the soul from its flight above,
And delights though it still deceives.

Is it well for a man to have loved an hour,
In the light of a woman's eye,
In the breath of her panting sigh?
To have lived for love, and lost its power,
And found it all a lie—
And found it all a lie?
Is it well to have won a deadly dower,
To sin and rejoice and die?

But still I pursued the dazzling dance
Of the girls that laugh'd and leapt,
That sang as they lightly stept,
With the beckoning hand and the backward glance,
Where the magic moonlight slept—
Where the magic moonlight slept;
I moved like a man in a glorious trance,
Through the dewy trees that wept.

But then they came to a temple vast,
Shut in by the shadows deep,
Where the planets glide and peep;
Up a hundred steps they swiftly past,

And ever with laugh and leap—
And ever with laugh and leap;
While I said to my soul, “We shall read at last
The secret the ages keep.”

The temple rose from its marble base,
As a wonder, white and tall,
Through its sombre cypress pall;
Inside lay a world of light and grace,
With revel and water's fall—
With revel and water's fall;
And there was joy in the solemn place,
But a fear crept over all.

And up the height of the hundred stairs
I fled like a guilty soul,
That has lost the last control;
And yet I mutter'd some hasty prayers,
As I heard the thunder roll—
As I heard the thunder roll;
And I drank the breath of the perfumed airs,
From the steaming urn and bowl.

But I stopp'd at the threshold yet awhile,
To assure my labouring will,
That my heart might feast its fill
On the floating locks and the flashing smile,
And the distant song birds' trill—
And the distant song birds' trill;
Till I long'd to spring to the wooing guile,
Though I stood at the threshold still.

And oh! the whirl of the maddening throng,
Of the winding hands and feet,
With their frolic bound and beat;
And the pause for the laughter low and long,
In the shade of a shy retreat—
In the shade of a shy retreat;
When the amorous blood was full and strong,
And the warm embraces sweet.

And then to recline on the starry thrones,
To sink, and sob, and rest
On a white and welcome breast;
While kisses mix'd with the gentle tones;
Were this not far the best—
Were this not far the best?
And not to faint on the rugged stones,
By the endless road opprest.

So I ponder'd still in my troubled heart,
As I gazed at the shining show
In its restless ebb and flow;
At the waving hands that join'd to part,
At the feet that came to go—
At the feet that came to go;
As the dancers wove their wondrous art,
And eddied to and fro.

And why should I pause on the threshold bound,
While love was fresh and free,
With faces fair to see;
While the fountains flow'd with a singing sound,
And a soft imperious plea—
And a soft imperious plea?
Should bliss by others be sought and found,
And never be known by me?

“Ah, come to our home,” said the pouting lips,
“Ah, come,” said the kindling eyes,
“From thy cold and cloudy skies;
Thou shalt twine thy brows with the rose's slips,
And repose where the lily lies—
And repose where the lily lies;
Thou shalt cool thy mouth with honey'd sips,
And ease thy breast with sighs.”

And I told my soul, “It is wise and well
To fly from the trail of tears,
To the mild and jocund spheres,
Where pleasures smile and the blossoms smell,

And sorrow never sears—
And sorrow never sears;
Where the shadows fall as the shadows fell,
Through the slow delicious years.”

Then I raised my foot with a firmer tread,
To cross the boundary line;
And a great resolve was mine,
To bury the past and the hateful dead
In the joy of songs and wine—
In the joy of songs and wine;
When unawares, ere my passion sped,
I breathed a prayer divine.

Yet I moved my face to the coaxing kiss
Of a woman passing fair;
When, behold, from her bosom's lair,
Slipt forth a snake with an angry hiss,
And coiled in her golden hair—
And coiled in her golden hair;
While I saw beneath me a dark abyss,
And the bones that whiten'd there.

And oh, the woe of the dreadful change,
That fell on those features bright,
Like the eclipse of a sudden night,
That darken'd along the temple's range,
And dimmed the jubilant sight—
And dimmed the jubilant sight;
That struck, with a horror stiff and strange,
Those forms of life and light.

For the women turn'd to threatening shapes,
The love to hollow lust,
To hate the looks of trust;
To ashes grey the purple grapes,
And the flowers to bitter dust—
And the flowers to bitter dust;
Yea, monstrous owls, and hideous apes,
Arose with moth and rust.

And across the threshold figures strode,
With swords of flaming fire,
And their feet besmirched with mire;
That stagger'd beneath the grievous load
Of an ever-growing ire—
Of an ever-growing ire;
That hugged, as they cursed, the piercing goad
Of a never-quenched desire.

And the clash of arms, and the cries of pain,
Rang over that awful room,
And were mock'd by the hidden tomb;
Till I fled through the thunder, night, and rain,
From the place of death and doom—
From the place of death and doom;
But I saw, as I turn'd, the tortured train,
In the mingled glare and gloom.

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

O thou who art somewhere strong and free,
Though the stars against thee fight,
Who dost bend a disobedient knee
To the Rimmon of the night—
Who yet lovest right,
That appears to flee,
And within thy heart abhorrest blight
Of the brutal unforgiving might,
And hast hunger for the Living Tree,
With its healing flowers and fruit of light;
O thou Unknown God, whom I cannot see,
I uplift a brother's hands to thee.

Though thy garb is sullied, and thy brow,
With the shadow of the Fall,
Is no longer bright and beauteous now,
And the curse is over all;
Though the deadly pall,
To which blossoms bow,

Hath made of thy outward life a thrall,
And the music answers not thy call,
And the evils wax we guess not how,
And enclose thee round like coffin-wall,
Yet thy soul hath framed a secret vow,
And my friend, the Unknown God, art thou.

Though the lie is often on thy lip,
And the arm upraised to beat,
And the muddy foot may backward slip
To the old unhallowed seat;
Though thy drink and meat
Be the poison'd sip,
And the passions which the furnace heat,
With a black hell-fire thy bosom eat,
Yet a deeper sense defies their grip,
And would lead thee to a calm retreat;
Though the needle wildly swerve and dip,
Yet the Unknown God is on the ship.

If thy form to something dark be grown,
And thy pastime grope in lust,
And the angel-wings that fanned have flown,
They are never far from trust;
If disfiguring dust
Be about thee blown,
And the killing vice and cankering rust,
Which the hidden springs of hope encrust,
Have their sullen seal upon thee thrown,
Yet arise and yet escape thou must;
For the conquering Truth shall have its own,
And the Unknown God some day be known.

THE UNKNOWN GODDESS.

She is everywhere so soft and sweet,
That the flowers would climb to kiss her feet,
If the flowers were there to tell;
And the breezes passing fond and fleet,
If they gave their freshness to the street,

Would surrender her their spell;
But no blossoms dwell
And no zephyrs meet,
In the lonely dungeon-cell,
On the lonelier ocean swell,
That the Unknown Goddess thus might greet;
For her robes, though smirch'd, of Eden smell.

She hath heavenly hopes if earthly clay,
And divine but human is her way,
For her lips were framed to bless;
And the steps, that often darkly stray,
Have not lost the bright immortal ray,
In the miry moil and press;
On her tatter'd dress,
It would trembling stay,
Through the awful strife and stress,
By the pathway none can guess,
While the Unknown Goddess asks for day,
And the burden just a little less.

Though the filthy rags about her cling,
And no jewels rare their beauty bring,
And no splendour lights her hair;
Though accursed vice eclipses fling,
And her face be even a hateful thing,
Yet her soul is wondrous fair;
And the glorious air
That the angels sing,
As they tread the starry stair,
When they mortal wrongs repair,
To the Unknown Goddess gives a spring,
And its winter takes from cold despair.

Though her voice is coarse, her features vile,
With the print of every woe and wile,
And her faded cheek is thin;
While the ears are only tuned to guile,
And the mouth forgets the way to smile,
And her daily bread is sin;

Though unsex'd by gin
And the wearying mile,
When the fingers cannot spin,
And the torments old begin;
Yet a grace shines out if shame defile,
And the Unknown Goddess lurks within.

FAIR AND FRAIL.

Fair she was, more fair than mortal,
Robed in beauty as by right;
Fair she enter'd Hope's pure portal,
Which reveal'd her to the light.

And she grew up sweet and slender,
Like the willow by the stream;
In her magic maiden splendour,
In the rapture of a dream.

Full of faith and chaste affection,
Finding jewels in the dust;
And in each untried direction
Sending out the shoots of trust.

True to every touch of nature,
Quick to every human call;
Knowing but the legislature,
Written on the hearts of all.

Child of impulse, free and fervent,
Blown about by winds of chance;
Friend of joy, yet sorrow's servant,
Moved with moving circumstance.

Sway'd by none but simple notions,
Slow to hatred, quick to love;
Open to all pure emotions,
That can raise the soul above.

Prone to fancy, not to reasons,
Following feeling more than facts;
Still creating kindly seasons
For the service of sweet acts.

And her face was all the fortune
Nature let her favourite bring;
Fashioned fondly, to importune
Love from every living thing.

Dark her eyes, and deep their story,
Like a poet's pensive dream;
Through her dusky tresses' glory,
Rippling ran a golden gleam.

Bright she blossom'd, fair and tender,
As the happy years went by;
Yet uncourted to surrender,
Maiden life and liberty.

With her artless faith and feeling,
All too innocent a dower,
Not defended with the steeling
Of the knowledge that is power.

Still untested by the fever,
Fed with passionate desire;
Ready for the first deceiver
Who to ruin should conspire.

Ignorant of knaves that palter
With affections as they lust;
Like a victim for the altar,
In the helplessness of trust.

Came a gallant from the city,
Snared her in his cruel grip;
In his breast no pulse of pity,
And a lie upon his lip.

He was strong and stately, gifted
With so many manly charms,
That she seem'd to heaven uplifted
In the circle of his arms.

Fool'd by all his lordly fashion,
She consented to her shame;
Gave but to his passing passion
Soul and body, life and fame.

Fair she was, more fair than mortal
Beauty that will quickly fail;
Fair she entered sin's dark portal—
Ah, that she was fair and frail!

THY POOR SISTER.

In a London cellar, grey and grimy,
Where never a sunbeam shone,
Where the snail had left its pathway slimy,
And whence all hope had gone,
Lay a woman—and she was dying, dying,
On a bed of rags and straw;
And the babe at her breast kept crying, crying,
For the food it could not draw.

Her face, like the night with frost, was smitten;
For it looked so sad and old,
Like a faded garment, darkly litten
With a touch of wintry gold.
She had lived, and now was dying, dying,
With the embers on the hearth;
She had toil'd till the end of trying, trying,
And had fought in vain with dearth.

It was only the old and common story,
Of a charmed and cheated trust;
And the conquering eyes had lost their glory,
For the lack of the pauper's crust.
She had loved, and here lay dying, dying,
To the sound of her infant's wail;
And the friendly dust was lying, lying,
On a woman fair and frail.

And that night, within the rich man's portals,
Rang out the festive song;
And he laugh'd and cursed the starving mortals,
He who did the damnèd wrong.
And he danced, while she was dying, dying,
The prey of his wicked art;
And to music time went flying, flying;
But he danced on a broken heart.

And the stars came up, and the stars went under,
Nor illumed that cellar lone;
And the walls of rock might rend asunder,
But not that heart of stone.
He forgot the form that lay dying, dying,
And the soul he taught to err;
For his pampered dog he was buying, buying,
But never a bit for her.

Thou art proud, but still thou art her brother,
Though a crown be on thy head;
And thy wealth belongeth to another,
To the dying and the dead.
But oh! for the poor that lives so lonely,
In his corner cold and dim;
And, oh! for the poor, when the sun shines only
On the rich, and not on him.

In a London cellar, grey and ghostly,
She lay in her bitter need:
She had suffer'd much, she had sorrow'd mostly,
For the babe she could not feed.
And the infant now was dying, dying,
For the want of the rich man's waste;
Though the cup was near to its crying, crying—
So near, but it could not taste.

And the garish gaslight laid its finger,
On the breast with its hopeless load,
As it shook in the blast—but it might not linger,
For it lit the rich man's road.
She was helpless—she was dying, dying,
For the sin of her fatal choice;
And alone in the night was lying, lying,
Within hearing of his voice.

And she strove to weep, but the fount was frozen,
Or the tears of blood would start;
And she strove to sleep, if the dreams would cozen
The sorrow that wrung her heart.

And she pray'd, as she was dying, dying,
For the coward that gave her death;
And her last sad hour went flying, flying,
With a blessing on its breath.

And she fain would move, but her strength was broken,
For she could not a moment turn;
And she fain would speak, but the words unspoken
Were like hidden fires that burn.
And there as she labour'd dying, dying,
Did the kindly shadows fall;
And then tender hands were trying, trying,
To cover her woe and all.

And between the daylight and the dawning,
The rich man went to rest;
And the dog leap'd up to lick him, fawning,
To be as she was once carest.
But the angels saw her dying, dying,
As they gazed in pity down;
And they brought, what is not for buying, buying,
For her and her babe a crown.

But alas! for the man that is no brother,
When he makes of his sin his joy—
When he preys on the weak, and shames another,
And then drops like a shatter'd toy;
It is oh! for the day that has no morrow,
And the path the curse has trod;
It is oh! for the sound of the sea of sorrow,
That breaks at the feet of God.

THE BABY INNOCENTS.

We cry from ghastly courts and lanes,
Where sunshine never falls—
Where straw is stuffed in broken panes,
And smoke begrimes the walls—
Where rings the ribald jest, and oaths
The sigh of suffering drown,
And hideous forms half stript of clothes,
Go stalking up and down.

For clouds have pitch'd their gloomy tents,
Between us and the sky;
We are the Baby Innocents,
And so we can but cry.

We never knew a loving breast,
We never felt the arm
Of pity fondling us to rest,
Or shielding from the harm.
We see but hateful bursts of sin,
The blow or bloody stain;
We poisoned are with dirt and gin,
And, prisoned, writhe in pain.
Our dress is rags and gaping rents,
We have but troubled sleep;
We are the Baby Innocents,
And we can only weep.

We huddled gasp in loathsome lairs,
Or crawl on clammy bricks;
We fall down creaking, crazy stairs,
And smart from demons' tricks.
We hear the drunkard's angry shout,
And things without a name;
And ever are we toss'd about,
From sorrow unto shame.
And all the woe that vice invents
Is ours, with cruel fears;
We are the Baby Innocents,
And have no voice but tears.

Some of us daily die to live,
While some just live to die;
And nothing more the earth can give,
Than dust wherein we lie.
And some are slain by mothers' hands,
While some are spared to ache;
And all are bound with grievous bands,
The grave alone will break.

The world is full of ill intents,
And mix'd with bitter leaven;
We are the Baby Innocents,
We have no home but Heaven.

THE CRY AND THE CURSE.

Alas, for the human cry and curse,
Alas, for the human curse and cry,
For the rich who empty out their purse,
To entrap a victim coy and shy,
That essays to fly,
As a creature which its wound would nurse,
And away from spy
Would a refuge seek, and finds a worse
Than the nodding plumes and sable hearse,
In a human sty!
Alas, for the hands that souls asperse,
And with sackcloth veil the sky!

Oh, among the noises of the night,
And the darkness deepest at the noon,
The grim sound that tells of grimmer sight,
That goes up to eclipsed sun and moon,
In the rosy June,
As in winter's gaunt and grisly light
Is the dying tune,
As of warriors beaten in the fight,
But refusing still to turn in flight,
Though the spirit soon
Will depart in proud unconquer'd might,
Yet would scorn an earthly boon.

There are wailing child and weeping maid,
There are figures once so neat and nice,
With the dainty flower and pretty braid,
But now warp'd and wither'd by the vice,
Which, as Arctic ice,
Has in frozen beds of bondage laid,

And not once or twice—
Which the sentence unrepeal'd has said,
For which time affords no balm or aid;
There are rattling dice,
And the moan of virgins blackly paid
For the barren sacrifice.

Ah, the sigh of stricken brutes is dread,
And the sob that tolls the loosening tie,
And the stifled, starving howl for bread,
Which to boasting Progress gives the lie,—
If we murmur “Fie!”
But was never tale of sufferers read,
Who in sorrow lie,
When the palsied arm in prayer is spread,
As the tale of that dishonour'd head,
For which devils vie;
As the cry of the woman, worse than dead,
Who is pierced and cannot die.

APPRENTICED TO DEATH.

Sold to the round of the prisoner's tread,
Sold as the living is chain'd to the dead,
Sold every day in the market of man,
Sold unto bondage, and set under ban,
Sold in the darkness away from the sight,
Sold at the noontide as well as the night,
Sold beyond help, without wishes or willings,
Sold for a trumpery handful of shillings.
They are bought, they are sold,
But not valued as gold;
Human chattels are choice, human chattels are cheap;
When but souls will be slain,
Do we ever complain?
We have sown to the wind, and the whirlwind we reap.

Sold to the freezing and starving and fog,
Sold for far less than your favourite dog,
Sold to the service that lips cannot name,
Sold to the shadow and torture of shame,

Sold for the crown of a funeral wreath,
Sold into sin, and apprenticed to Death!
How long, O just Heaven, how long
Shall this traffic in ruin and wrong
Go wrecking our flowers with its flood—
This traffic in flesh and in blood?

Sold in the shambles by those you make poor,
Sold to the sorrow unseen at your door,
Sold by the vice that you pamper and pet,
Sold for the pitfalls your own hands have set,
Sold in their weakness the children you know,
Sold from the depths to yet deeper below,
Sold for the cost of mere luxury's frillings,
Sold for a beggarly handful of shillings!

They are sold, they are bought;
It is nobody's thought;
Human chattels are cheap, human chattels are choice;
For the slaughter of souls
Not a bell ever tolls,
Not a watchman in warning will lift up his voice.

Sold while you sit in your armchair and sleep,
Sold in their youth while they helplessly weep,
Sold for the blood-money you might have paid,
Sold because ease will not go to their aid,
Sold in their tenderness, blown like a breath,
Sold to the Devil, apprenticed to Death.

How long, O kind Heaven, shall Gain
Get its winnings from murder and pain,
While our slothfulness, deaf to the knell,
Is accomplice in horrors of hell?

ONLY A DOVE.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
Cast out into the world without a choice,
While its soft breast the bitter tempest tore,
And in the darkness it but seem'd a voice,

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
A tender fledgeling that could scarcely fly,
With wounded wings all broken ere they bore,
And through the silence sent a helpless cry.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
A gentle creature simply framed to love,
That seem'd in weakness vainly to implore
Pity from earth below, and heaven above.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
Far from the shadow of its sheltering nest,
Seeking the refuge that it had before,
And finding not one little spot of rest.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
Toss'd up and down by every wind and wave,
Having no place upon this earthly shore,
No home except the quiet of the grave.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
Hungry and wearied, scorced by cruel flame,
Stricken to very death, and bleeding sore,
And waiting for the dawn that never came.

Only a Dove, a Dove and nothing more,
Forlorn and suffering in a world of sin,
Till God in mercy open'd wide the door,
Put forth His hand and took the wanderer in.

POOR AND PROUD.

Alone in London, and without a friend,
Upon an earth that seem'd of iron wrought,
Beneath a sky of brass, she nobly fought
Life's bitter battle to the solemn end.

Too poor to purchase food, too proud to bend
From the pure purpose of her settled thought
To that curst freedom by dishonour bought,
At the sad price which makes the soul descend.

She would not soil the sweetness of her name,
Nor traffic with the glory of her charms,
And earn a loathsome living out of shame;
She stretch'd to God her blind and beauteous arms,
And to escape the very breath of harms,
She died—and kept the jewel of good fame.

THE SUCKED ORANGE.

Beautiful had she been,
Beautiful was she still,
Though the leaf had lost its lustre green,
And the days were dim with ill;
Though the flower was shorn of its early sheen,
And the world disdain'd her will.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
But never a step to stay;
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
And the world went on its way;
While out of the depths of the dying lamp,
Burst a radiance grim and grey.

Beautiful had she moved,
Beautiful was she yet;
For the fire of sorrow only proved,
The gold that it could but fret;
And oh, she had sadly, madly loved,
And pray'd she might forget.
Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!
And the clock beat out the time;
Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!
Till the church sent back the chime,
And the cricket chirp'd from the hearth's chill brick,
In the ashes and the grime.

Beautiful hung the fruit,
Beautiful did it taste;
As though it would best an Eden suit,
And not a poor dreary waste;
But alas! it was rotten at the root,
And the cold decay made haste.

Sob! Sob! Sob! Sob!
Went the breath in its hurried tide;
Sob! Sob! Sob! Sob!
But the door was opening wide,
That would not ope to the careless mob
By which she was thrust aside.

Beautiful was her face,
Beautiful seemed it now,
When the touch of childhood dropp'd its trace
On the still-unblighted brow;
But the purest, richest, rarest grace
Was the penitential vow.
Throb! Throb! Throb! Throb!
And the heart was labouring sore;
Throb! Throb! Throb! Throb!
Ah, the coward who falsely swore,
Till there was no sweetness left to rob,
And the orange pleased no more.

Beautiful shone her trust,
Beautiful fell her tears,
For the woe of the long-forsaken lust,
And the much-forgiven years,
In the lonely darkness and the dust
Of the fought and conquer'd fears.
Thrill! Thrill! Thrill! Thrill!
Was it pain, with its piercing dart?
Thrill! Thrill! Thrill! Thrill!
Nay, to joy it had turn'd its part,
And the cup ran over from its fill,
Till it broke her woman's heart.

Beautiful had she walk'd,
Beautiful thus she lay,
Though the angel, Death, might not be baulk'd
Of his suffering, helpless prey;
For to her, the Saviour drew and talk'd,
And clothed in His white array.

Sigh! Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!
It was only the weary frame;
Sigh! Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!
As the sinking, flickering flame
Shot up to its heavenly source on high,
When the gentle Master came.

Beautiful was her love,
Beautiful to the last;
As the spent, departing spirit wove
But a blessing for the past,—
For the wretch who trick'd, betray'd her, throve
On the ruin he had cast.
Rest! Rest! Rest! Rest!
Though on earth she had garner'd none;
Rest! Rest! Rest! Rest!
The defeated soul had won;
She was gather'd to her God's own breast,
In the iron strife fordone.

NOBODY'S CHILD.

Out in the damp and the darkness and cold,
Like a wandering lamb that has stray'd from the fold—
Out in the piercing and pitiless fog,
Like a homeless and hunted and desperate dog,
Ready to snatch at a crust or a bone,
In the rollicking crowds all adrift and alone—
Weak in her hunger, in misery wild,
A dirty but dear little nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

Away from the mothering arms, and the kiss
That she never has known and now cannot miss—
Away from the warmth of the sheltering room,
In the horrible glare that is worse than the gloom
That flouts her old rags, and exposes her stains
From the splashing of mud and the soot-dropping rains,
With a face that, if washed, would look modest and mild,
An unfortunate outcast and nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

Rambling, she reasons not whither or why,
With no shield but the shadow, no roof but the sky,
Haunted by gaslights that flicker and flare,
Like great eyes that send through her their terrible stare,
Over the pavement, and under the feet
Of the horses that tramp the unsociable street,
With a head on which never one sunbeam has smiled,
Among hundreds all lonely, and nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

It is Christmas in country, and Christmas in town,
While the humble look up, and the lofty look down,
And their charity scatter broadcast for the poor;
There is mercy, that knocks at the lowliest door,
There is hope for the footsteps that stumble and err,
There are crumbs for the dogs, but no morsel for her,
As she gapes at the food in huge pyramids piled,
Unnoticed, uncared for, and nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

Gaily the shops wear their holiday dress,
While she totters along in the strife and the stress
Of the famine that gnaws at her heart, and the tear,
Unseen, is squeezed out by the torture of fear;
And the holly and mistletoe wave without heed,
Though the plenty seems only to mock at her need:
And away in amusement the season is wiled;
She hears it and envies it, nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

If our homes have the spell and the splendour of wealth,
All the rapture of pleasure, the radiance of health,
As she shivers outside in the shade and the blast
That is cruel and strong, and must conquer at last;
Let her b' some one's darling, this Christmas, and share
In the brightness and beauty abundance can spare;
Though her frock is in tatters, her features defiled,
Yet let some one remember poor nobody's child—
Poor nobody's child!

THE CRY OF THE WOMAN-CHILD.

She was only a slip of a child,
Wayward and fond and sweet,
Like a flower that blossoms wild
When the spring and summer meet;
She was dainty and undefiled,
And the world seem'd under her feet.
And alas for the woman-child,
Who is thrown on the miry street!

In the happy twilight space,
Where the shades their curtain spin,
She had learn'd the wondrous grace
Of the Man who is our kin;
But never she knew how base
Was her brother of earth within.
And alas for the baby-face
Which is early streak'd with sin!

She was only a bit of a girl,
Tender, and fresh from school,
To be caught in the cruel swirl
Of the black and boiling pool—
To be dragg'd beneath in the whirl,
An ignorant, pretty fool.
And alas for the innocent girl,
Who is made the rich man's tool!

As free as the birds that fly
Where the labourers slowly plod,
As fair as the violet shy
Which peeps through the winter sod,
As bright as the open sky,
In her purity she trod.
And alas for the children's cry,
That goes up to the throne of God!

She was only a little maid,
From her quiet cottage home,
Half forward, and half afraid,
With the scent of the country loam,

With the light of the dewy blade,
And the freshness of the foam.
And alas for the helpless maid,
When her steps begin to roam!

Like a bee that honey sips,
When the meadows all are dry,
From the weed that honey drips,
Though the flowerets droop and die,
She had stray'd where the storm-cloud dips,
And the sunbeams fade and fly.
And alas for the rose-red lips,
That answer the sugar'd lie!

She was only a silly lass,
On her life about to start,
Unskill'd in the rocks to pass,
Unwarn'd of the tempter's art;
And the earth was a magic glass,
That gave back her guileless heart.
And it's oh for the simple lass,
Who is sold in the devil's mart!

There were gardens gaily plann'd,
Though the worm was at the root;
In the brothers, kind and grand,
Lay the demon and the brute;
And out of corruption's land
Came the tallest bud and shoot.
And alas for the stainless hand,
When it plays with the poison-fruit!

She was only a mother's pet,
A creature who all would trust,
Imperious, wilful, yet
Like a straw in the angry gust;
With the pitfalls round her set,
At the mercy of man's lust.
And alas for the unsoil'd pet,
Should she fall in the fouling dust!

Where the stately mansions rise,
Went she wandering to her fate,
Where the wealth its victims buys
For the passion it cannot sate,
On a pathway paved with sighs,
To the gilt infernal gate.
And alas for the heavenly eyes,
If they look at the earthly bait!

She was only a father's pride,
The pick of a radiant wreath,
Borne along by the dancing tide
With the waft of the blossom's breath,
A credulous baby bride,
But married to ghastly Death.
And alas for the blushing pride,
Which is plunged in the night beneath!

There was laughter to smooth the road,
There were voices that seem'd to sing,
There were burdens that did not load,
And the shadow folded its wing;
The fountain with sweetness flow'd,
And the pain had a pleasant ring.
And alas for the secret goad,
And the lips with a bitter sting!

She was only a delicate dove,
Just fluttering from the nest,
Half-fledged, and with dreams of love,
On a childish, aimless quest,
To purchase a riband or glove,
Unaware of the damnèd pest.
And alas for the weary dove,
When her soul can find no rest!

Not wicked, our sister, but weak,
To know what the great world had
Of wonder a girl might seek,
She flitted with footstep glad,

Like a lamb to the slaughter meek,
Suck'd into the whirlpool mad.
And alas for the dimpled cheek,
If the cherries are sere and sad!

She was only a doll, with hair
As fired with the sunshine's flame,
With her untaught, foolish air,
Like a picture out of its frame;
Trick'd to the altar-stair,
And the offering without name.
And alas for the glorious hair,
That is turn'd to a crown of shame!

A handful of sweets was spread,
For the prey of priceless cost;
And, to wile her wavering tread,
Every lure was lightly tost,
To the chamber of the dead,
Till the fatal bridge was crost.
And alas for the darling head,
When the jewel of jewels is lost!

She was only a country child,
As merry and blithe as a boy
From the lesson conquer'd, wild
For the pleasure that cannot cloy;
Trapp'd and betray'd, and defiled,
Dash'd down from the stars of joy.
And alas! for the woman-child,
Who is dropp'd like a broken toy.

Shall the cry go up from earth,
That pitiful baby-wail,
In the midst of the sinful mirth,
From the hearts that ache and ail,
Unavenged, in the awful dearth
That is under the dead thing's veil?
And alas for the sisters' worth,
When their brothers faint and fail!

She was only the heir of Heaven,
Swept on the ocean-swell,
Strong with the strength of seven,
In her holy maiden-spell;
Till she tasted the bitter leaven,
And sank, as the angels fell.
And alas for the hope of heaven,
Which is made the guest of hell!

Above the ten thousand shocks,
And the shadows as they roll
From the cradle that it rocks,
And the grave it digs as toll,
Goes the knell that fondly knocks
At the door of God's high goal.
And alas for the lie that mocks
At the life of the virgin-soul!

She was only a baby-mouth,
Like a lily blighted, pale,
In the horror of great drouth,
From the scornful, scourging gale;
Like a dream of the sunny South,
In a dim, forgotten dale.
And alas for the pleading mouth,
If it cannot tell its tale!

Shall our daughters pine with pain,
Now the chivalry is gone?
Shall our darlings weep in vain,
And the cursèd deeds be done?
Shall the leper's guilty stain
Be a jest that babblers con?
And alas for the honour slain,
While the murderer still lives on!

WOMAN.

Woman hath tender, loving hands,
And between earth and heaven she stands,
A ministrant in mercies high,
To bring her native glories nigh,

That straying man no more may err,
While she is God's interpreter:
Her life a loving fountain flows,
And as it gives it larger grows,
It beautifies the barren years
With precious seed of prayers and tears,
That hallow joy, and sweeten sorrows,
And round dark days with radiant morrows.

A LADY.

Noblesse oblige.

She moves in modest ways, at others' will
Servant of servants, but a lady still—
Low at the needle, or high on the throne,
'Tis grace that crowns her, and 'tis grace alone—
That kindness which from her heart's fountain flows,
As light from star, as hue from blossom grows;
It is her nature, sweetly strong and soft,
Which makes so humble and yet lifts aloft—
Refines, enlarges, sanctifies, and bends
Through courtesies of earth to human ends;
For she may stoop to nothing mean or small.
Who lives and loves, not for herself, but all.
A lady is a lady, in the dust,
And nobly each thing does—because she must.

DIGGING THEIR GRAVES.

What are they doing—those horrible shapes,
Gibbering fiends and chattering apes,
Haggard and ghastly, unwomanly forms,
Scorch'd and all scarr'd by the scathing of storms,
Huddled, half clothed in the remnants of rags?
God, are they earthly or hell-gotten hags?—
Ghosts of our vices, our victims and slaves,
Dying, they dig their own pitiful graves.

Helpless and hopeless, forgotten and lost,
Seared by the sun, and bitten by frost,
Bound with the bands that eye cannot see,
Haunted by terrors that never may flee,
Weary, with fingers that tremble and spin,
Sexless are they, or things unsex'd with sin?
Fashion'd of tears and troubles and clouds,
Make they their coffins and weave their own shrouds.

Hungry and homeless, in shadow and shame,
Begging the fire, and bemoaning the flame
Burnt in the bosoms it does not consume,
Dazed with the lights that no pathway illume,
Hated and hunted like creatures accurst,
Drinking in poison, yet ever athirst.
What are they planting, with labouring breath?
Gallows-trees, laden with black fruit of death.

Once they were beautiful, fair without flaw,
Faithful to Heaven and loyal to law;
Once they were women, who loved and were loved,
Prettily booted, daintily gloved—
Once they were sisters and daughters—and now,
Branded are terrible tales on their brow.
What are they bearing, as bound by a spell?
Tolling in fear their own funeral-knell.

Once they had mothers who bade them not weep,
Tuck'd them in tenderly, kiss'd them to sleep,
Smooth'd their white pillows, shut out the rude air,
Patted their cheeks and fondled their hair,
Smiled away dangers, petted and spoil'd,
Would not let one of their ribands be soil'd.
What are they now in the horror and strife?
Doom'd, they are turning the last page of life.

Now they are shorn of all womanly grace,
Hardly seem human, like demons in face,
Blighted and blasted, so foul do they grow,
Sunk from above or sent from below;

Yet are they sisters, and down in the deeps
Lurks the sweet angel of hope—though he sleeps.
Shall we awake them, or leave to the gloom
Buried and damn'd, in the suicides' tomb?

BLIGHTED BUDS.

Pallid and wither'd and old,
With their faces like winterly morn,
Restless and wretched and cold,
With their garments so tatter'd and torn—
Why, as half-frightened, half-bold,
Do they limp along weary and worn,
Like beasts to be slaughter'd or sold
In a market, all foul and forlorn?
What is their name?
Whence is the shame,
That shuts them in shadow and horror from men?
What are they doing?
Where are they going,
Huddled as sheep that have stray'd from the pen?
They are brothers and poor,
And they knock at thy door.

Looking so aged, looking so young,
Old men or children, babies or brutes,
Writhen in weakness, deformed, and wrung
With the famine that sends its insatiable roots
Into the bosom, and fetters the tongue,
And gnaws like the rats at the heart-strings and roots—
Tottering fearfully, swaying and swung
By the icy north-easter that hisses and hoots—
What are those shapes,
Human or apes,
Pigs from the pigsty or ghouls from the grave?
What are they saying,
Cursing or praying,
For the judgment to damn them or mercy to save?
They are neighbours who lie
On thy threshold to die.

Outcasts and exiles, like Cain,
They are driven by scourges of pride,
Madden'd with passion and pain,
To the charnel-like holes where they hide—
To the words and the workings that stain,
To the slough where the lepers abide,
To the crimes that alone are their gain,
And for ever from pity divide.
They are chain'd to the mill
Of the sorrows that kill,
They are grinding and groaning in darkness and need;
Hounded in corners,
Butts of the scorners,
Beasts that in bondage of misery bleed.
They are waiting thy hands,
That should shatter their bands.

Ah, they are children who always were gray,
Always were tired and hungry and sad,
Never had toys for a moment of play,
Never learn'd lessons but those that were bad,
Never were young from their earliest day,
Ag'd with suffering that only makes mad,
Wise with the sins that in mourning array—
Treasures of evil were all that they had.
Yes, thy children they are,
Under blot, under bar;
Children who yet may be dragg'd from the mud,
Torn from the miring,
Pluck'd from the firing,
Till the blossom arise from the death-stricken bud.
They desire but thy love,
To stoop down from above.

NOT WICKED, BUT WEAK.

She was pretty, she was young,
In her springtide's opening day;
Innocence about her hung,
Like the freshness of the May—

Innocence unto her clung,
Like the early morning ray—
Set its tone upon her tongue,
Breathed its beauty on her way;
Wedding bells around her rung,
Hardest labour seem'd but play,
Fragrant flowers above her swung,
Paradise before her lay.

Every breeze it seem'd a kiss,
Every word it seem'd a song;
Envy pass'd her by, for this
Found no handle for a wrong,
Found she had a secret bliss,
Purity, that made her strong—
Envy, with its serpent-hiss,
Left her scatheless in the throng;
Trouble did not come amiss,
Sorrows could not linger long;
Butterfly from chrysalis,
Bright she burst each captive thong.

She was young, and she was fair
Like a brook where toy-boats sail,
Tripping down its stony stair,
Leaving laughter in its trail;
Sunshine crown'd her glorious hair,
With the lights that never fail;
Though the thunder in the air
Boded hours that ache and ail;
Though so close the captor's lair,
Threaten'd with its iron jail—
Lie and lust, a hideous pair,
Fought against her bosom frail.

She was but a maiden weak,
Tempted, while she loved not sin—
Ignorant what art will speak,
Dream'd not how deceit may win,
How by drops destruction leak
Through the crack, however thin;

Heard not prison-hinges creak,
O'er the merry dance and din;
Knew not wrath that trifles wreak,
Blind to nets the spoilers spin,
Till the tempest from its peak
Swoop'd below and suck'd her in.

LOST.

Sweet and tall,
Soft and pure,
She had grown like a blossom that hugs the wall,
That of shelter and rest is sure,
And afar from the treacherous lure
Where the shadows come, and the tempters call,
And the blasts of the angry tempest fall,
With the wounds that no balm can cure.
Sweet and tall,
Soft and pure,
Like a flower that is yet unknown to all,
In her modest grace demure.

Heigh! ho!
Maids are sweet,
And the lovers come, and the lovers go,
In the study and the street,
And the lovers still must meet;
And as they have woo'd they will ever so,
While the crimson lips will scarce say No,
When their time has dawn'd to greet.
Heigh! ho!
Maids are sweet,
And the lust that ravens to and fro
Will not spare the foolish feet.

Fond and shy,
Glad and good,
Like a snowflake dropp'd from the upper sky,
Like a leaflet from the wood,
That in solitude has stood,

She was blown by the adverse blasts, to try
Her tender wings, when they could not fly,
With the fury of the flood.
Fond and shy,
Glad and good,
And she heard the stormy waters cry,
In her simple maidenhood.

Lost! lost!
Deaf and blind,
She plunged in the stream that no life has crost,
With the ever-wailing wind,
And the greedy rocks that grind
The wretches who every hour are tost
To the doom of the endless night and frost—
Who a respite cannot find.
Lost! lost!
Deaf and blind,
She had idly err'd, and she paid the cost,
And she left no tale behind.

ONE MORE—A CHRISTMAS SHADOW.

Aghast in the crowd,
Adrift with the snow,
By the weight of her weary sorrow bow'd,
That was dark and deep as the thunder-cloud,
With the footsteps slow,
And her forehead low,
She was yet all deaf to the babbling loud,
She was yet all blind to the festive glow,
Poor and proud,
Wrapt in woe,
Like a woman draped in her funeral shroud,
Who is stabb'd to the heart with a mortal blow.

Away from her home,
Afar from her kin,
She had wander'd about from tower to dome,
In the mocking gleam and the murky gloam,
With her mantle thin
Tuck'd tight to her chin,

While the snow-flakes fell like the whirling foam;
She had turn'd the last page and it would not win,
Shut the tome,
Shelved it in,
As her staggering feet now scarce could roam,
All alone in the multitude with her sin.

Apart from the mass,
With nothing to pawn,
She had seen how the heavy shadows pass,
She had watch'd for the glimmer on the glass—
Like a frighten'd fawn,
From its mountain lawn,
In the staring street, with the grimy gas,
Like a desert that but with stones is strewn—
One more lass
Downward drawn,
In the sullen warfare of class with class,
To the dreadful night that can have no dawn.

Astray in the town,
And nobody's pet,
With a horrible shame that no gin might drown,
And a burden more than an empire's crown,
For the judgment set,
With the fears that fret,
As the moth lays hold of the crumbling gown,
She was drifting still from the gibes she met,
Deeper down,
Farther yet,
Till the darkness closed like a dead man's frown,
On her hair all draggled—her wild eyes wet.

THE GOLDEN GATE.

O she was a maiden coy,
And she was a being bright;
For her days were a dancing stream of joy,
And the earth was only a painted toy,
Or a showman's fairy sight,
In the rich and radiant light

Of the love that nothing yet could cloy,
And the peace no passion might alloy.
The world to fight,
And truth employ,
She arose in her young unconquered might
That would death itself destroy.

But there stretch'd across her track,
The all-beautiful Golden Gate,
That invites the unwary souls who lack
To the feast from which they come not back,
And the pageant of proud state
Which ends in the evil fate—
To the sun-bright scenes that will change to black,
And the blooms that conceal the earthquake's crack,—
Lone and late,
Blind, in the wrack
Of the rolling mists and the forms of hate,
She drew to the foes' attack.

And she deem'd they were kindly friends,
In her yet uncheated trust;
For she had not a thought of baser ends,
As she came with the innocence that bends,
When the delicate blossom must,
To the wooing pleasant gust—
Though she walk'd as an ignorant victim wends
To the doom that the angel-demon sends,
Crownèd lust,
The rock that rends,
As a thing of earth to its mortal dust,
Where the damnèd soul desends.

With her foolish wayward will,
She stood at the open door,
And she heard the song of the laughing rill,
And she felt a strange delicious thrill
That she never felt before,
When she mark'd the goodly store,

And the gifts of the gracious wealth or skill,
But she knew not these were the gifts that kill.
One step more,
One step still,
And she plunged in the sea without a shore,
In the grave no corpses fill.

She had only dropp'd from the ranks
As a child for a little time,
When its heart is set on some idle pranks,
Or it hears the music chime;
She had never dream'd of crime,
But she knew of her garden's sorry blanks,
And she saw a flower on the sunny banks—
A flower from a fairer chime.
On the treacherous planks,
In the secret slime,
She slipt at the grasp in her joyous thanks,
And she found but the ashes' grime.

And the wretched deed was wrought,
Though she nothing meant but play;
And the priceless gem was sold and bought,
For a villain's holiday;

And she stood on the stony way,
In the sad eclipse that she had not sought,
By a coward's hand to the gutter brought,
That had turn'd her summer gray.
But the fight was fought,
And the vanquish'd pay;
And her brow was branded deep, and nought
Could the inward pangs allay.

But she long'd to break her ties,
And her girlish breast was pain'd;
And her girlish fingers to the skies,
Which on others mercies rain'd,
Were in wild petition strain'd;
And she strove to burst from the prisoning lies,
And the things that fed like carrion-flies
On the life of honour drain'd;
But she could not rise,
For the star was stain'd,
And the heaven seemed deaf to her piteous cries,
The accusing blot remained.

A CUP OF WATER.

Dost thou mark the murmur, like the ocean beating
On the iron rocks of some bleak, barren shore,
Wildly now advancing, slowly now retreating,
Chafing, mourning, sobbing, tossing evermore?
Dost thou hear those feeble voices falling,
From the darkness, on thy careless heart?
Those are voices of the children, calling
Unto thee to play a brother's part:—
Unto thee they speak in anguish
For the help thou mayest give;
Let them now no longer languish,
Brother, let thy sisters live!
Those from fields of slaughter,
Where they wounded lie,
Crave a cup of water,

Or they can but die;
Some are failing,
Spent are some,
All keep wailing—
“Come!”

Dost thou note the tramp of many little paces,
Seeking for a refuge, never finding rest?
Though thou seëst not the warp'd and wither'd faces
Of the babes that yesterday hung on the breast.
Dost thou hear that stifled moan of sorrow,
Out of sickness and beyond the sight,
Praying for the sunshine of the morrow,
And when morn comes praying for the night?
Orphans are they, without mother,
In the furnace and the shame;
Shouts of pleasure cannot smother
The intolerable flame.
From the lepers' quarter,
They, in helpless state,
Beg a cup of water,
Ere it is too late.
Sad their crying,
As they sink,
“We are dying!—
Drink!”

Dost thou not remember it was children's prattle,
Which in music up to Heaven was sent of old,
Where is raging now the deadly strife of battle
For existence, at the price of honour sold?
Dost thou know they are the children's voices,
Sisters who are bound with many chains?
While thy life is radiant and rejoices,
They lie writhing in accursèd pains.
Theirs are buds that would be bursting
Into blossoms fair to see,
Were they not so vainly thirsting
For the showers that fall on thee.
If thou has a daughter,

Think of those that lack
Just a cup of water,
On their weary track.
Mercy leading—
Help them live;
They are pleading—
“Give!”

Dost thou reck not of the fighting, and the straining
Of the tiny hands beseeching ere they sink,
Horror of the drowning, fierce and frenzied paining,
As the slender forms go toppling o'er the brink?
Dost thou feel no pulse of human pity
For the outcasts that are yet thy kin,
Lost and helpless in the woeful city,
All alone in sorrow with their sin?
Brother, ere the daylight darken,
Ere the final shadows fall,
With a brother's blessing hearken
To thy sister's last faint call.
Bitter need has caught her
In its cruel coil,
For a cup of water
To wash out the soil.
She goes blindly
Stumbling now;
Raise her kindly,
Thou!

Dost thou trifle with thy duties thus, and tarry
At the sparkling wine-cup, or the glutton's feast,
Callous to the grinding of the woes that carry
Judgment to the villains baser than the beast?
Dost thou think that thy own debt is nothing,
Unto her who has so little joy—
That thy wealth of gold and food and clothing
Was but dealt thee as a selfish toy?
Oh, for shame, shake off thy dreaming,
And thy pride's cold coward frost!
Tears are falling, blood is streaming—

Shall thy sister's soul be lost?
Has thy solace sought her,
Given her all she asks—
But a cup of water,
In her fiery tasks?
She walks lamely
To and fro;
Sit not tamely—
Go!

Dost thou loiter feebly, when the hours are broken
With the sighs of captives under bolt and bar—
When on foreheads young is branded the black token
Of the humbled honour, that has left the scar?
Dost thou wish to leave the world, no better
For thy passage through it to the grave?
Shall not thy hand break a single fetter
From the neck of one poor hopeless slave?
Up and stir thee in the struggle,
That is raging round thee still!
Not a moment stay to juggle
With the damnèd powers of ill!
Christ the Holy bought her,
Thy stain'd sister, first;
With a cup of water,
Quench her killing thirst.
She weeps lonely
In grim fact;
Talk not only—
Act!

Dost thou yet as worse than brute and craven linger,
Wasting precious powers in niggard ease and sloth,
While the scorn that scathes, with stern contemptuous finger,
Points at victims of thy violated troth?
Dost thou fear not God, infatuate sleeper?
Dost thou care not evil such may cease?
Wake and rise! thou art thy sister's keeper;
Or, found wanting, ever hold thy peace!
Listen to the children's crying,

Suffering, bleeding, bound, and poor;
Hearts are breaking, souls are dying;
'Tis thy sister at thy door.
Thine the hands that brought her,
Innocent, to shame;
Thine the cup of water,
In the Saviour's name.
Bells keep tolling;
Lives are gone;
Time is rolling.
On!

A CRUST OF BREAD.

[I.]

“Only a crust of bread!”
“Only a crust of bread!”
Out of the depths where storm-winds fly,
Forth from the darkness came the cry,
Came with a pattering baby-tread;
While idle echoes made reply,
“Only a crust of bread!”

Gaily the feast was spread,
Though feet so tiny bled;
And bright the gas-lit portals flash'd,
As high the waves of pleasure dash'd,
Above that helpless baby-head;
While ask'd white lips, by rainscud dash'd,
“Only a crust of bread!”

Hanging just by a thread,
Life without food or bed,
Lonely as on the mountain moor,
And in a world of riches poor,
With baby-fingers strangely led,
Knock'd at the unknown father's door,
“Only a crust of bread!”

Deserted, thus she pled,
When the fond mother fled
From the cold, grudging earth that gave
No kindness but a nameless grave—
From the great wrong that fortune sped;
And baby language fain would crave,
“Only a crust of bread!”

Sweet eyes, distraught with dread,
A ray of comfort read,
As with the pangs of hunger wild
Totter'd that tender woman-child,
With the great troubled tears unshed,
And called in baby hope that smiled,
“Only a crust of bread!”

The cruel stones were red
With stains, that dumbly said
What baby tongue could never speak;
While lust its passions still might wreak
In waste that fifty mouths had fed,
Though begg'd no wicked breast, but weak,
“Only a crust of bread!”

And he that day was wed,
Who should have borne instead
The penal burden for the sin;
He heard that baby-wail within,
As fell the lifted hand like lead,
That pass'd the cup in festive din—
“Only a crust of bread!”

II.

“Only a crust of bread!”
“Only a crust of bread!”
And the big city felt no smart;
They trod on many a broken heart,
As round they moved with careless tread,
While baby suffering pined apart—
“Only a crust of bread!”

Dainties were freely spread,
If thousands lack'd and bled,
For pamper'd brutes that pick'd and chose;
While want crawl'd to its ghastly close,
And no one saw the baby head,
And no one cared for words like those—
“Only a crust of bread!”

Woven of costly thread
Were purple couch and bed,
Where the rich spoiler lived in state,
With all that appetite could sate,
Though baby feet starvation led,
And sobb'd she from her soilèd fate—
“Only a crust of bread!”

The daughter vainly pled,
While life too surely fled
From the bruised baby frame, that strove—
While the fierce storm against her drove
Its freezing blasts, by mercy sped—
To find some help where others throve—
“Only a crust of bread!”

Sinking with cold and dread,
No pity there she read,
No love in one warm welcoming glance,
As left a baby to chill chance,
From lamps that ill their glory shed;
She moan'd through mocking song and dance—
“Only a crust of bread!”

Why should he lightly wed,
And see his dog was fed,
When his own flesh had bitter need?
And yet he would not, dared not, heed
The curse whose footsteps fell like lead,
The baby cry for its small need—
“Only a crust of bread.”

The rose within was red,
That should have droop'd instead,
And turn'd to ashes pinch'd and pale,
As in the anguish of the gale
That baby form unseen dropp'd dead
And carried home to heaven its tale—
“Only a crust of bread!”

THY POOR BROTHER.

In a London alley, lone and loveless,
Where never a breeze had blown,
Lay a nest, and it was dark and doveless,
For the mother-bird had flown.
And there was a sound of weeping, weeping,
From half-fledged and unfledged things,
With a faint and feeble cheeping, cheeping,
For they miss'd the mother's wings.

Lo! the fowler spread his nets of pleasures,
And the foolish bird was snared,
To return no more to her tender treasures,
From the lust that nothing spared.
And the shades of want kept creeping, creeping,
With its curse through the flutter'd nest;
And the winds outside were sweeping, sweeping,
As the scourges of unrest.

And the father, like a wreck of iron,
Stood on the stony floor,
He could face all foes that might environ,—
He was fearless, even if poor.
When the children still were sleeping, sleeping,
He could fill the empty purse,
While the night-long watches keeping, keeping;
But he could not toil and nurse.

And the hungry nurslings, round him huddled,
Were to him like prison-bands;
To the mother-breast they should be cuddled,
With the clasp of mother-hands.

And his boding heart kept leaping, leaping,
At the want he could not fight,
Like a painter who is steeping, steeping
His brush in the gloom of night.

He had loved her with the mighty yearnings,
Of a soul that loves but one;
And for years he had laid his life's hard earnings
At her feet, when the toil was done.
And a store he had been heaping, heaping,
That his children might have some;
If there yet might be a reaping, reaping,
For the rainy days to come.

And his fount was one—for he was simple,
It had ever quenched his thirst;
He had fondled still the red rose dimple,
As he fondled it at first.
And a misty star came peeping, peeping,
With a beam that coyly stept,
In the room where hope was sleeping, sleeping,
Till the strong man bowed and wept.

In a London alley, lean and haggard,
With the splash of sooty rains,
Where the sun was late, and the moon a laggard,
And the very stars look'd stains,
There were nestlings who were weeping, weeping,
In the lone, unmothered nest,
With the starved and strainèd cheeping, cheeping
Of the cry that cannot rest.

They were faint for food, and white and weary,—
They had none for many a day;
While the hours were crawling, dim and dreary,
They had wept their tears away.
And the grave-like cold came creeping, creeping,
Into the hopeless room,
And its bitter breath went sweeping, sweeping,
Like the breath itself of doom.

And their eyes were wild, like creatures hunted
With the hounds upon their track;
And the tender plants look'd sad and stunted,
For the love that turn'd not back.
But the hunger knew no sleeping, sleeping,
Though their frames were tired and spent;
And its pangs their guard were keeping, keeping,
But they came and never went.

Then the strong man, trembling, took them kindly,
To the shelter of his arms;
And his rough hand feeling, fondly, blindly,
Grew soft with their soft charms.
And his great heart still went leaping, leaping,
Like a steed that fain would go;
Though the night his thoughts kept steeping, steeping,
In the hues of want and woe.

But the pretty darlings pined and sicken'd,
As they clung to him in vain;
And the cruel darkness round him thicken'd,
But darker was his pain.
Though the rich their gold were heaping, heaping,
And the cup o'erflow'd its brim;
Though all were something reaping, reaping,
No gleanings fell for him.

And into an angel grew the baby,
For it spread its wings and flew;
And the rest soon follow'd it, and, maybe,
It was God's own hand that drew.
And the morning light came peeping, peeping,
Into those windows lorn;
But it found them all fast sleeping, sleeping,
In the sleep that has no morn.

THE SACRIFICE.

Who can longer calmly stay,
When such cruel deeds are done,
In the staring light of day,
And compassion visits none?

When the innocents at play
Are by masking devils won?
Children weeping,
Children creeping
To their narrow, nameless bed—
Children crying,
Children dying,
For the crumbs we idly shed.

Una was an only child,
Thirteen summers had she known;
And the wind, to others wild,
Softly on her path had blown;
Stormy night about her smiled,
And the stars were all her own.
Orphans needing,
Outcasts bleeding
With the wounds of bitter strife,
Stragglers calling,
Strivers falling,
None were near her shelter'd life.

For the common curse of woe,
On her portion left no blot;
Want, with more than earthquake throe,
Heaved around and touch'd her not;
Evil, with its Arctic floe,
Shut not in a shameful lot.
Toilers moaning,
Spinners groaning,
At the hourly lash of pain;
Weaklings stooping,
Nurslings drooping,
Where they never rise again.

Then the trial came at last,
And her sickening parents lay,
Shaken by the shadowy blast,
Which to darkness turn'd the day
Till the memory of the past,
Faded like a dream away.

Worn white faces,
Heavy paces,
Moved as to one solemn knell;
Voices chiding,
Tongues deriding,
Beat as on an iron cell.

Una now was left to win
Bread of carefulness for three—
Scared by the unfriendly din,
Seeing friendly comforts flee—
Tost about by gusts of sin,
Like a leaf upon a tree—
Stript like stubble,
Swept a bubble
On the crest of angry waves;
Thunders muttering,
Fledglings fluttering,
Broken, to their early graves.

Tempters soon were at her side,
Dropping doubtful words in stealth,
Flattering what she had of pride,
Pointing to the stricken health,
Whispering of an opening wide
With an easy way to wealth.
Dazzling offers,
Golden coffers,
Still were ready for her clasp;
Though lost darlings,
Caged like starlings,
Pined in lust's remorseless grasp.

Una reck'd not of the scars
Graved by pleasure turn'd to whip—
Tortures behind stony bars,
Love that strangled in its grip;
She had dwelt among the stars,
Lie had never cross'd her lip.

Children mourning,
In adorning
That was got at ghastly price;
Children going,
All unknowing,
To the nameless sacrifice.

When the hideous evil grew
Out, and bare before her stood,
Beckon'd to foul pastures new
Her who never thought but good;
Round her sinking powers she drew
The white robe of maidenhood.
Babies wailing,
Mothers failing,
For the food they wanted sore;
Keen as scourges,
Sad as surges,
On her waken'd bosom bore.

Still her parents sicken'd worse,
Down into the gates of doom:
Empty was the little purse,
Spoil'd was each so dainty room;
Feebler, wearier, wax'd the nurse;
Deeper, darker, fell the gloom.
If they perish'd,
Who had cherish'd
Her so long with many a pain;
In the sorrow
Of the morrow,
Could she ever smile again?

Long the struggle, stern the fight,
In the stillness of her heart
Consecrated to the right,
Yet unsoil'd by any art—
In its holy virgin might,
Scorning an ignoble part,

Tears kept crying,
“They are dying,
Who for thee no joy denied.”
Hopes, that waken
Breasts, had shaken
Hers, until she half complied.

Yet she shrank in horror still
From the deed of dreadful cost—
Stay'd as stays the dancing rill,
Smitten by a sudden frost;
Till the burden broke her will,
Till she pitied and was lost.
Though her honour
Lay upon her
Like the early dew and bloom.
Stars were falling,
Angels calling,
As she totter'd to her tomb.

So she gave herself for them
That for her had suffer'd much—
Gave the proud and priceless gem;
All she could bestow was such—
She whose garment's spotless hem,
Sin had never dared to touch.
Shall base slander
Seek to brand her,
Who that offering chose to give—
Braved the blaming,
Took the shaming,
That her parents thus might live?

PITY THE BABIES.

Pity the babies with only corruption to eat,
Pity the babies who swoon in the blistering heat;
Pity the babies all ashen from biting of frost,
Pity the babies who ever are tumbled and tost!
Ye whose beautiful shelves,
Are all golden with gain;

And who pity yourselves,
For a thorn-prick of pain!
Pity the babies who know not a moment of joy;
Pity the babies who never have handled a toy;
Pity the babies who cry,
And receive no reply!

Pity the babies whose mothers their mothers are not;
Pity the babies whose life is one hideous blot;
Pity the babies in peril who hang on the brink;
Pity the babies who fall in the surges and sink!
Ye whose fortunes are thrown
In a world without fear;
And who pity your own,
If they shed but a tear!
Pity the babies who stretch out dim hands for your aid;
Pity the babies who pine and are always afraid;
Pity the helpless and weak,
That their wants cannot speak!

Pity the babies who droop for the sweetness of air;
Pity the babies who, wash'd, would be winsome and fair;
Pity the babies who fade from the lacking of light;
Pity the babies who darken with creatures of night!
Ye whose tenderness takes
Lesser things in its bounds,
And who pity the aches
Of your horses and hounds!
Pity the babies whose day is a flickering breath;
Pity the babies who never know kindness but death;
Pity the babies whose lot
Is to bud and to rot!

Pity the babies whose past has been nothing but grief;
Pity the babies whose present can give no relief;
Pity the babies whose fears for the future are worse;
Pity the babies whose portion seems only the curse!
Ye whose bitterest throes

Are from drawing-room gales,
And who pity the woes
Of mere puppets in tales.
Pity the babies who wither from lying and lust,
Pity the babies who fall away piecemeal to dust,
Pity the babies who weep
From their infinite deep!

THE SERPENT'S COILS.

O for an hour wherein to think,
O for the blessèd midnight rest!
And not to tremble on the brink
Of paths that lead me from the blest!
But must I drink,
And must I sink
In gulfs from which returns no guest—
And in the dungeon see no chink
Of sunshine, from the east or west—
And know each day adds on a link—
And must I feel the poison-pest,
Burning like hell within the breast?

O for the sweet familiar sound
Of Sabbath bells, from tower and spire!
And not to be a victim ground
For ever lower in the mire,
A prisoner bound,
The weary round
Of torture treading, with the ire
Of vengeance following as a hound
That scents the blood, and cannot tire,
Till what is sought at length is found!
Ah, for the impotent desire,
That must descend, and would aspire!

O for a respite from the pang,
Peace from the secret serpent's coils,
Which round and round the drunkard hang,
With deeper and yet deeper toils,

With biting fang,
Beneath the clang
Of trumpets and the fence of foils,
And satire with its sword-like twang!
From woe that as a cauldron boils,
About which dance the witches' gang,
Which has no salve of holy oils,
And deeply saps and darkly soils!

O for a hand to loose the chain,
To open the dark door of fear,
Which shuts me in to ceaseless pain,
And those accursèd thoughts that sear—
As God marked Cain—
And leave the stain
That nothing can make clean or clear,
And though the whole wide world I gain,
Or live for many and many a year,
Would still a blotted page remain,
Will never be wash'd out by tear,
Will never hope of mercy hear!

THE SHAPING OF THE SHROUD.

In dim and awful trance she lay,
As stiffen'd into stone;
She knew not whether night or day,
Was that which sucked her life away,
And round her ghastly shone,
Like ghosts of memories gone;
She knew a woman grim and gray,
Stitch'd at her bedside without stay,
In stillness long and lone,
With fingers as of bone,
That threaten'd as if fain to slay,
And never uttered tone.

It was not shadow of the night,
Nor day that darkly glowed,
That curtain'd so her straining sight,
And from her drew the lingering might,

Which feebly through her flowed;
As one who helpless row'd,
With labouring oar and hopeless plight,
Against a stream whose struggling light
The rapids nearer show'd,
And hateful doom not owed;
Down, ever down, too fast for fright,
While that weird woman sewed.

She could not move, nor mutter sound;
Though spent her spirit boil'd,
As under iron lid, and bound
Of burden heap'd as burial-ground;
The spell so surely coil'd,
About the fluttering heart it foil'd;
She heard the baying of the hound
Afar, she saw the solemn round
Of grisly hands that spoil'd,
That sapp'd her life and soil'd;
Forgotten deeds she sought and found,
While that strange woman toiled.

She watch'd, as prisoners watch a game,
Through bars that horror shed,
The gruesome thing which closer came,
Until it took the dreadful frame
Which made a bier her bed;
She watch'd it slowly sped,
Until it wrapp'd her round in flame,
And clothed her with its shape of shame,
As to the funeral led;
And then a prayer she pled—
She murmur'd just the Holy Name;
And that gaunt woman fled.

THE CHILDREN'S PRAYER.

We have no voice, we cannot speak,
In cellars sad and lone,
Where might is right, and childhood weak,
And cradles are of stone;

Where mothers' hearts are harder still,
And cold as winter rain;
While black, from every seed of ill,
Bursts every fruit of pain.

We have no hands, we cannot make
An issue from our grief;
We pine, and but fresh sorrow take,
As all our poor relief.
We think of joy, as something strange,
Like flowers that distant grow;
New suffering is the only change,
Our little lives may know.

We have no feet, we cannot fly
To other fields more fair;
They say there is a cloudless sky,
With sweeter, purer air;
But what it is we scarce can dream,
Nursed in the darkness thus;
We feel, however blest it beam,
It brightens not for us.

We have no light, we cannot learn
Of things that better teach;
Our troubled minds must vainly yearn
For truths beyond their reach.
No radiance falls on any cheek,
No waft of summer wind;
We fade as plants that fondly seek
The sun they never find.

We have no friends, we cannot love,
Beneath the curse and blow;
We hear there is a heaven above,
We have a hell below.
There may be goodness, somewhere, far,
We nothing see but sin;
We even would welcome prison bar,
If keeping from our kin.

We have no peace, we cannot slake
Our thirst for rest untried;
In sleep, our bleeding hearts awake,
And weep the help denied.
We have no hope, we dimly trust
That somehow God will save;
We long for kindness from the dust,
And quiet in the grave.

A LEAP IN THE DARK.

Pretty and young,
Tender and fair,
Like a bloom in the swelling blast she swung,
That caught at her tangled hair,
That toss'd it abroad in the air,
As in pain to her tatter'd shawl she clung,
Which around her breast like her grave-clothes hung,
While she stood on the fatal stair.
Pretty and young,
Tender and fair,
Through the soil and the mournèd sin that wrung
With her shoes that did not pair.

Drip! Drip!
On the cruel stone
Fell the crimson blood from the gaping lip
Of a wound unto the bone;
While the ghastly lamplight shone,
And the cold, it struck like an iron whip,
It clutch'd her throat in its freezing grip,
As she shiver'd late and lone.
Drip! Drip!
On the tell-tale stone
Dropp'd the blood, till it made her footstep slip,
As if it would fain atone.

Woman and child,
Foolish and frail—
And her eyes had a hunted glare and wild,
Like a man's when his hopings fail,

When he, shipwreck'd, sees no sail,
But the mocking clouds on the sky-line piled;
Yet her features still had a sweetness mild,
As if heaven had left its trail.
Woman and child,
Foolish and frail,
She had fled from the battle, bruised, defiled,
And she heard no angels hail.

Sob! Sob!
Tears rain'd down,
While her broken heart, in its last mad throb,
Turn'd away from the cursèd town,
To the cottage beside the down,
With the kettle singing on the hob,
And the honour that no man dared to rob,
Which was all her maiden's crown.
Sob! Sob!
Tears poured down,
As she thought again of the brutal mob,
And the unforgiving frown.

Sin for a day,
Shame for a year—
That was the devil's own price to pay,
With the creeping famine and fear,
With the falling trouble and tear,
And the shadow that never was rent by ray—
With the horror that haunted and dogg'd her way,
And the judgment drawing neàr.
Sin for a day,
Shame for a year,
With the sorrow that kill'd yet could not slay,
And that toll'd within her ear.

Blow! blow!
Bitter the blast,
As it snatch'd at her rags and seem'd to grow,
And to gather out of her past,
Until every evil at last

Was a part of its savage ebb and flow,
In her memory's awful midnight glow,
That the darkness made more vast.
Blow! blow!
Bleaker the blast,
As she drifted onward to the woe,
That its toils about her cast.

Beautiful still,
True to the end,
She was womanly, faithful, fond through ill,
To him who she hoped would tend—
To him who she thought would blend
With her love his own in one happier will,
Till the cup of their gladness drank its fill,
With the blessings time would send.
Beautiful still,
True to the end,
Though her breast was stabb'd with a mortal thrill,
That no healing now could mend.

Ding! dong!
Wedding bells
From the rushing river sent their song,
To the far-off daised dells
And the nodding cowslip bells,
Where she never dream'd of a thing like wrong,
When her simple faith was as free and strong
As the wind on her native fells.
Ding! dong!
Wedding bells,
By the ragged stream they were borne along,
Till they changed to dying knells.

Ashen of hue,
Helpless and worn,
From the first descent she still did rue,
With its grievous rankling thorn,
To the daily poisoned scorn
That denied the mercy she might sue,
For the weary soul that would be true—

To the wound his hand had torn.
Ashen of hue,
Helpless and worn,
Did she see beyond the rift of blue,
And the beam of a brighter morn?

Plash! plash!
Under her feet,
The waters went swirling in flicker and flash—
They went gurgling and groaning and fleet,
To the strife where the waters meet,
Like a slave that is writhing beneath the lash;
Till her mind was fired with a purpose rash,
And the thought of death was sweet,
Plash! plash!
Under her feet,
The waters whiten'd with spray and splash,
As if weaving her winding-sheet.

Only a leap
Into the dark,
And there was an end in the dreamless sleep—
And there was the beacon-spark
That guided her to the ark,
Now the wearied hands no more could reap,
And a maiden's blotted life was cheap,
And her frame already stark.
Only a leap
Into the dark—
A passing cry and a huddled heap—
And the waters left no mark.

Sigh! sigh!
On the mud and sand
Come the sluggish waves, as they bring it nigh
To the black and oozy land,
The thing with the awful brand—
As they wash their bitter burden high,
With its face upturn'd to the veilèd sky,

To his feet that idly stand;
Sigh! sigh!
On the mud and sand,
They give him her with the pleading eye,
And his picture in her hand.

Only a child,
Who had gone astray,
In the flowery path that upon her smil'd—
Who hath follow'd the laughing ray,
Which so tempted her to play,
Where untasted joys to the ruin wil'd,
Though her heart was as fresh and undefil'd,
As an opening summer-day;
Only a child,
Who had gone astray,
Who had lived and loved and been beguiled;
And the world went on its way.

THE LEPER.

Haggard and grey,
Doom'd at the start,
In the grip of a ghastly dim decay,
Wth the worm that is gnawing at the heart,
Drifting away,
Drifting to die in her shame apart;
Tottering on,
Lonely and lean,
She goes seeking hope, that has nowhere shone
From an earthly fount for a life so mean,
With the daylight gone,
Like a cursèd thing, unclean, unclean.

Branded at birth,
Restless as Cain,
She has known not an hour of childhood's mirth,
Who was ever possest with cruel pain,
Iron of girth,
Like a serpent that leaves its strangling stain

Hated by all,
Outcast and sad—
While the flowers may bloom, and the song-birds call,
To the sin that is jewell'd bright and clad—
Marked for the pall,
Unclean, unclean, in a world as bad.

Starving and lone,
Stricken and rent,
Among bosoms harder than pavement-stone,
With the trouble that low her brow has bent,
Ill to atone,
With her last, poor beggar's farthing spent;
Fallen and down,
Blighted and lost,—
Though the crime is fair beneath its crown,
And the vices free that spare no cost—
Butt of the town,
Unclean, unclean, and the gulf not crost.

Friendless and sick,
Broken and faint,
The confiding prey of a damnèd trick,
That was draped in the glozing lies and paint,
Cut to the quick,
By the memory of that helpless taint;
Leper and soil'd,
Shut behind bar,
With the prisoner's chains around her coil'd,
In the virtuous crowds that show no scar,
Dumb and despoil'd,
Unclean, unclean, and yet purer far.

Pierced beyond cure,
Out of the sun,
She goes stumbling, with but her coffin sure,
To the crack whither all things mortal run,
If they endure—
To the shadow that no one at last may shun;

Hunted to death,
Into the night,
With her sorrow, disease, and anguish'd breath,
And the tears that darken the straining sight,
Hurried beneath,
Unclean, unclean, from the fouler light.

BLACK ROSES.

These were glorious once, and fair
As the roses flash in June,
Sweetening wide the summer air,
Dancing to the song-bird's tune.
Perfect they of feature, face,
In each dainty line and turn,
Big with the unutter'd grace
Of the fires that hidden burn;
Still in beauty stept they on,
With the brightness on their brow;
Whither has the glory gone?
What is all the fairness now?

No more wax the roses red,
No more wave the roses white;
Ah, the perfume long is fled,
And the lustre faded quite!
Ah, the faces, that shone clear,
In the dew of laughing dawn,
Darken'd seem with doubt, and fear
From which hope has light withdrawn;
Ah, the fronts, that toss'd so high,
Lowly hang in blasted bloom,—
Droop as prisoners, who feel nigh
The inexorable doom.

Once they stood with steadfast form,
Glorified by every cross,
Struck a deeper root in storm,
Stole enchantments out of loss;
Firm against afflictions' flood,

Stronger, fairer, from each ill,
Though resisting unto blood,
Polish'd in the iron mill;
Shining from the furnace-flame,
Purer by the grander choice,—
Catching, through the cloud of shame,
Solemn vision, sacred voice.

Now the lips, attuned to serve
Magic of the passing mood,
Spoil'd of colour and of curve,
Closed on guilty secrets brood;
Blossoms bathed in earthly showers,
Heavenly suns were wont to nurse,
Fresh, like Eden's early flowers
Wither beneath direr curse;
Grief is on the crownèd head,
Smitten as by blighting east,
And the worm that wakes the dead
Even now begins its feast.

Ah, the roses red were rare!
Ah, the roses waver'd white!
Fattening on the stroke of care,
Splendid from the wound of spite;
Free they stretch'd their loving arms,
Humbler plants around to bless,
Grudging not their fragrant charms,
That would all the world caress;
Giving still, and asking not,
Treasures they in turn might take,
Leaving every haunted spot,
Softer, richer for their sake.

Maidens were they once, who march'd
Proudly unto holy airs,
Sweet as rain on meadows parch'd,
Turning clods to starry stairs;
Maidenly they moved, and lent
Haloes to the hardest fate,

Just for others to be spent,
Rising early, toiling late;
Still they cherish'd women's hearts,
True in each unstudied deed;
Still they play'd their simple parts,
Out of woman's utter need.

But a burden sad was theirs,
Given in beauty's fatal bloom,
Bidding them be sorrow's heirs,
And the dower became the doom;
Grace, that gladden'd, wax'd a sword,
Sharp to slay the gifted frame,
Silken hair grew hangman's cord,
Strangling in the links of shame;
Grim decay now dogs their track,
Dimming every joyous form,
And the roses all beam black,
Stricken by the deadly storm.

OVER THE THRESHOLD.

It is merely a child at a railway station,
A child with her rosy cheeks,
And a hand that has had no education,
That her rumpled tresses sleeks—
A dear brown hand that is small and trembling
As it wanders about the hair,
While she stares at the crowd, in vain dissembling
Her alarm, with a hunted air;
A poor brown hand, with the marks of labour,
Which are all a toiler's gems,
And that seems in search of a rest or neighbour,
Who no ignorant child contemns;
A shy brown hand that goes fast, and fingers
Every button and frilling wave,
And that yet for a moment fondly lingers
On the Bible her mother gave;
Which safe on her bosom nestles, nestles,
In a handkerchief clean and white,

While she watches as one who wrestles, wrestles,
With the doubts that in darkness smite.

(Aside.)

Oh, the woman-child is fair of favour,
Who is yet unsoil'd by sin;
And the ripe red lips have pleasant savour,
For the wealthy who can win.
Lo the flower-girl sang, “O stay, my sister!”
And the constable growled, “Move on!”
But never a friend who would there assist her,
And the sheltering train had gone;
There was plenty of useful work for others,
Who had each their human bond,
And the babies laughed to find their mothers,
If the tears would oft respond;
There was many a happy time of meeting,
For the lovers sever'd wide,
With the distant bow and the colder greeting
That betray'd what speech would hide;
There were features soft, and features surly,
And the most divided ends,
In the glorious motley hurly-burly,
Which a railway platform blends;
And the travellers still went parting, parting,
With the farewell kiss and call,
And she felt the dewdrop starting, starting,
Though she dared not let it fall.

(Aside.)

Ah, for some there are daily feasts of laughter,
And for others just a sigh;
But the dust is one in the hereafter,
And the grave is ever nigh.
She was only a child, a rustic maiden,
With the crimson on her mouth,
With a plain deal box not overladen,
From her cottage in the south;

With a bunch of lavender in her pocket,
That would drive disease away,
And her father's hair in a silver locket,
Where the ribands went astray.
She was little used so far to travel,
Nor had left her home before;
And if she that web could not unravel,
Where was help she might implore?
It was pageant all so strange and staring,
Without sign of law or clue,
As if every eye at her were staring,
And she could not mercy sue;
And her troubled heart seem'd flying, flying,
When she heard no welcoming tone,
And her colour wither'd, dying, dying,
As she waited thus alone.

(Aside.)

For the roses have their time to blossom,
And their time the winter shades,
But the lily of a maid's pure bosom
Is the bloom that never fades.
Ho! the cabmen shook their whips and shouted,
And the porters push'd her back,
Till a tear fell on the lips that pouted,
With another on its track;
And it wider grew, that tender dimple,
On the innocent, pleading face,
As she wonder'd, in her sadness simple,
Should she find the promised place?
Should she ever reach the happy haven,
In some cosy quiet street,
With its plot of grass well-kept and shaven,
And afar from tramp of feet?
She had dropp'd the letter of direction;
While the crowd around her prest,
On a pretty child without protection,
Save the Bible at her breast.
And she heard the news-boys telling, telling,
Of the last black murder wrought,

And the church-bells all were knelling, knelling,
In her agony of thought.

(Aside.)

It is woe to those whose breasts have steeling,
Though our beauties rise to fall;
But the dower of true and dainty feeling,
Is the grimmest curse of all.
She had lost her father, and the sorrow
Brought a new and nameless grief,
And her mother was too proud to borrow
Or to beg for man's relief;
So the birdie had to spread her pinions,
And to leave the little nest,
For an unknown earth of dark dominions,
With a heart of wild unrest;
And to seek her fortune out she flutter'd,
On the awful world untried,
Though the unshaped prayer to Heaven she utter'd
Just a fitful help supplied.
She had got a place, in the giant city,
Which would furnish food and dress,
And the mistress wrote so full of pity
For the girl left fatherless;
They had told her to keep waiting, waiting,
Whatsoever else might hap,
While the hand of lust was baiting, baiting,
For its dupe a flowery trap.

(Aside.)

Ha! the serpent still has sunny masking,
And the truth is doubted still;
To its doom goes folly, without asking,
And the Judas kisses kill.
And then, through the mob about her bustling,
Came a lady of gentle look,
With a black silk dress that made a rustling
And a heavy cross-bound book;
And she said to the simple maiden, smiling,

“Have I kept you waiting, dear,
In these dreadful sounds and sights beguiling,
Though a Providence is near?”
With her golden chain she beam'd upon her,
And her accents sounded mild,
Like the print at home of the Madonna
Clasping the Holy Child;
And she kiss'd the pretty face that brighten'd,
While she took the awkward hand,
Till the vanish'd colour once more lighten'd,
As the day on a new-born land;
And she led her trusting blindly, blindly,
To the words that childhood charm;
But she laugh'd and talk'd so kindly, kindly,
Who could ever dream of harm?

(Aside.)

From the sword have flow'd red seas of slaughters,
And more dread is the famine grip;
But the bitterest scourge that slays our daughters,
Is the sugar'd lying lip.
But she thought some folks gave curious glances,
While the flower-girl sigh'd, “Take care!”
And a murmur from mere timid fancies
Bade her foolish heart beware;
Though the porter gave such prompt assistance
And her box in safety bore,
Who had scarce acknowledged her existence,
When she ask'd his help before;
Then the driver bow'd them to his carriage,
And politely shut them in—
Just as if she were going to her marriage,
And not service to begin;
She was so confused with wondering pleasure,
Like a dazzled country maid,
That she did not miss the darling treasure
She had in her bosom laid;
And the waves of joy came gushing, gushing,
As they hurried gaily on,

With new roses yet more blushing, blushing,
But her Bible now was gone.

(Aside.)

Though the sign-post unto heaven is pointing,
And the living letter spread,
Yet the brow with the burial anointing,
Cannot see except the dead.
O the maddening music of the Babel,
That like billows on her broke,
From the shining shop with gilded gable,
To the wheel with splashing spoke;
There were cries from every sort of vendor,
With the burr of foreign lips,
And the beggar-baby's wailing tender,
Or the crack of furious whips;
There were rumbling sounds, and rugged jolting
From the heavy loaded vans,
And great doors seemed barring or unbolting,
With the clash of milking-cans;
There were mutter'd oaths and children's prattle,
Through the fiddle's squeaking strings,
And uncouth machines that made a rattle,
With the dragging clank of chains;
There was voice of sparrows cheeping, cheeping,
And of thousand at their play,
And ten thousands more were weeping, weeping,
For the never-dawning day.

(Aside.)

And the tide goes out, and the tide comes flowing,
With the tunes it has utter'd long;
But the waves, and the winds so earthly blowing,
Do not drown the angels' song.
O the spectacle there that met her vision,
And the rainbow-painted show,
The funeral car that in derision
Threw a shade across the glow;
There were radiant brows and eyes of glory,
As if homes of heavenly love,

And the furtive looks that told their story
With a light not from above;
There were noble forms and costly ermine
Upon coroneted cars,
And the things that seem'd mere mates of vermin
In their wretched want and scars;
There were jewels flashing, and not harder
Than the breast to pity foe,
With starvation by the well-stocked larder,
And the wealth eclipsing woe;
There were scenes of pleasure calling, calling,
To the prodigals of pride,
With the wounded workers falling, falling,
And they jostled side by side.

(Aside.)

Oh, life is a wondrous mocking medley,
Like a fairy picture-book,
And the sights that damn, and are most deadly,
Have the fondest, fairest look.
And the country girl was glad and serious,
In her mingled hopes and fears:
It was all so mighty and mysterious,
That the laughter follow'd tears;
Now she overflow'd with childish chatter,
And now sat demurely still,
While the restless hand kept up a patter
On the open window-sill;
And they flew by lordly piles and places
That were like enchanted ground;
They had tempting peeps of garden graces,
Which the jealous walls shut round;
Adown every hill they hurried faster,
And again up hill went slow,
By the burnt black bricks that show'd disaster,
And black hearts that made no show;
And the stream of life roll'd, tossing, tossing,
In its passion and its play,
Till she seem'd a traveller crossing, crossing,
The great ocean far away.

(Aside.)

So we forward haste with loves and quarrels,
With the money in our bags;
It is death to the hand that grasps the laurels,
It is death to the foot that lags.
And the clocks rang out from tower and steeple,
As they still drove gaily on;
She had pass'd through London and its people,
When she found her Bible gone;
And she could not keep a sob from rising,
With a prayer that gave her strength,
But before she knew came a fresh surprising,
And the carriage stopp'd at length;
Then the prim policeman was so willing,
And descended from his height,
But seem'd not too proud to take a shilling,
While he help'd her to alight;
And the lady was as kind and gracious,
As a mother even could be,
And the house uprose before her spacious,
Like a palace fair to see;
But the miser went on getting, getting,
And the victim woo'd her fate,
And the July sun was setting, setting,
As she entered the iron gate.

(Aside.)

There are captives, and they feel no thralling,
Though the net is plainly spread,
And the worms in their horrid glee are crawling,
To the body not yet dead.
Then the inner door swung open lightly,
As she clamber'd the steps of stone,
And a fair young face beam'd on her brightly,
While the dying sunset shone;
And the birds outside were having vespers,
In their carols clear and strong,
And the winds, with their slow delicious whispers
Were chanting the evensong;

And she saw the passion-flower, that mounted
To the window, and look'd in,
And she tripp'd through passages uncounted,
Far away from vulgar din;
Through the fruit and foliage, bud and blossom,
Across crimson carpet floor,
With a throb of joy in her gentle bosom,
To a dim and curtain'd door;
And inside she hasten'd, willing, willing,
Till she heard the fastening lock,
And the echoes went through her thrilling, thrilling,
With a sudden ghastly shock.

(Aside.)

Though the churches ope for pious mortals,
They for tenants ever crave:—
But the fullest rooms have their sealèd portals
In the dungeon and the grave.
There was ruby wine in rich decanter,
Under hangings of gold and lace,
There were tables set as by some enchanter,
And with every gift and grace;
And she was not alone, for a mocking stranger
Then approach'd her soft with smiles,
As she saw too late the mortal danger,
Too late the accursèd wiles;
For the neck was in the victim's halter
That is held by sumptuous vice,
And the lamb lay helpless at the altar
For the sombre sacrifice;
Though a fount was somewhere sweetly singing,
And the last sad sunbeam fell,
And the holy chimes to heaven kept ringing,
As a spirit sank to hell;
For the fatal chain was folded, folded,
That regards not tender fears,
And a maiden's flesh is moulded, moulded,
Not with water, but with tears.

(Aside.)

Are they fools who work, while wise men borrow
The rich harvest of their pains?
Do the righteous, who are fair and sorrow,
Unto sinners give their gains?
There were screams, but the constable on duty,
Who was dearly bought and bound,
Took his oath it was not outraged beauty,
And he never heard a sound;
For he did not notice children's raving,
If more serious tasks he had;
And when females took to such behaving,
They were always drunk or mad.
Though a Member, who had outlived pleasure,
To play mountain and the mouse,
Framed a really comprehensive measure
And proposed it to the House;
But Parliament could not make a quorum,
To decide our darlings' doom,
Till the measure died—perhaps of decorum—
And they built a pretty tomb;
So the mighty man rose, winning, winning,
And in vain the weakling cried,
While the wealthy stay'd not sinning, sinning,
And the little ewe lamb died.

(Aside.)

And the fine policeman takes his money,
For he labours long and hard;
And the trap is baited still with honey—
But our guardians who shall guard?

EXTREMES MEET, OR THE POOR CHINEE

It was only a picture, in the Graphic
Of the fashion that highest rank illumes,
With its dainty scenes, and the forms seraphic,
That despise the bondage of old costumes;

It was only a common kind of picture,
And a spectacle such as we often see,
That the prude would visit with scarce a stricture,
But it caught the eye of a poor Chinee.

There were ladies at some exalted function,
In their “full-dress” undress blaze of charms,
In their lace and jewels without compunction,
And a prodigal show of breast and arms;
There were all the sights that allure the senses,
When the mind from mere prejudice is free,
When it mocks at decorum and expenses;
But it puzzled the brain of the poor Chinee.

There were tucks and trimmings, and scraps of clothing,
With the paint and powder of borrow'd grace;
And the gorgeous trains, though they led to nothing,
Seem'd material somewhat out of place;
And as if they had robb'd the fairer features
Of protection from which they ill could flee,
To beget an inferior type of creatures;
And it look'd so sad to the poor Chinee.

It was all like a wild and wicked vision,
From the Christian temples to Bad Fame,
Where the decent is food but for derision
In the civilised orgies none may name;
They were women despoil'd, and foul with staining,
Which the Briton inflicts and gilds with fee,
And had little save fig-leaves now remaining,
For the dress that is dear to the poor Chinee.

And he stared and stared, for he knew no better—
He was only an ignorant heathen fool,
And he still was bound with a modest fetter,
For from Fashion he had not learn'd at school;
Till at last a thought of their strange condition,
Which appear'd a thing that should never be,
That the half-nude frames sought a wise physician
Was a ray of light to the poor Chinee.

He felt sure those women, that shone out shameless,
Had but come to be touch'd by a healing hand;
And the bold unbosom'd forms were blameless,
As they ought to be in a Christian land.
And he guess'd that the pearls were as closely guarded,
As the fruit on the sweet forbidden tree,
That their shelter was just for a while discarded;
And he sigh'd at their pains, the poor Chinee.

He was only a fool, and we know how dresses,
That were once given beauties to conceal,
In this country, which God's own Bible blesses,
Are meant now those beauties to reveal.
And the Culture, that would not be rude and ravage—
To show that extremes may still agree—
Has return'd to the noble naked savage;
And we can but pity the poor Chinee.

LIGHT AND SHADE—A CONTRAST.

Light.

Splendid in jewels and lace,
Noble of features and form,
She swept along in her queenly grace,
Shielded from trouble and storm;
Calm and cold,
As the gold
That flash'd from her fingers, and round her neck
Coil'd like a serpent's kiss,
Coil'd as about to hiss,
On the snowy charms that it could but deck,
That were soft and fair and without a speck,
For she lack'd no earthly bliss.

Shade.

Huddled in rags and dirt,
Squalid of mien and frame,
With a wisp of straw about her girt,
Branded with blots of shame;

Lone and lost,
Torn and tost,
As a wandering waif by the angry wind;
Hungry and grey and gaunt,
Crush'd by contempt and taunt,
In a world of wealth to her sadness blind,
She crept in the shadow she still could find,
She crawl'd to the leper's haunt.

Light.

Spher'd above cares that press,
Honour'd by prince and all,
In the pomp of her hundred-guinea dress,
Broider'd for virtue's pall;
Hard and bright,
As the light
Of the diamonds sparkling in her hair,
Black as the raven's wing,
Black with the deadly sting
Of the creatures that flutter false and fair,
She stept in her pride up the palace stair,
In the sunshine of the spring.

Shade.

Frighten'd and bruis'd, and bent
Low by the scornful gust,
As it bit at her faded wrap and rent,
Spatter'd with mire and dust;
Bare of feet,
On the street,
And denied the turnip so freely spread,
Refuse that pigstyes pave,
Hunted by laws that slave,
And begrudged but the lapdog's crust of bread,
Till at length when the broken heart is dead,
She is shot in a pauper's grave.

AT OUR DOOR.

Dying and in thy street,
Starving and at thy door,
Suffering, my brother, at thy feet,

Turn'd from the sick thou would'st not greet,
Only because they are poor—
Only because they are poor;
And yet that his fellows should lack and live,
Is a crime the rich cannot forgive,
Set alone in his castled moor,
Looking down on the pinch'd and poor:
While he smiles at the wealthy friends that err,
At the titled thief and adulterer.

Famish'd and faint they pine,
Under shadow of Cross and Crown,
Broken, and yet thou mak'st no sign,
Brother, though these are thine;
Only because they are down,
Only because they are down;
And is it a sin in this Christian land,
That a fallen wretch should raise his hand
For help from a Christian town,
When no fault has thrust him down?
And the villains, who still their thonsands slay,
Go honour'd and own'd their guilty way.

Look, where the secret knife
On the quivering flesh has carved
Such a ghastly tale of want and strife,
As the fingers sew with the thread of life,
Only because they are starved—
Only because they are starved;
While they slave and slave with the dwindling might,
Through the helpless pain of the hopeless night,
Which a brother might have halved,
When he heard the moaning starved;
For a farthing or two an hour they slave,
Till they drop despised in a pauper's grave.

All in misery mute they lie,
In the darkness blind and bleak;
For they cannot rend the accursed tie,
And they have no rest except to die,

Only because they are weak—
Only because they are weak;
And they munch the crust from the gutter's dirt,
While they drudge at the button-hole or shirt—
That is shroud, if it could speak—
As they daily grow more weak;
And their sisters sing, at their fortune's flood,
Who dance in the dresses wrought with blood.

Thousands and thousands they are,
Shut out in the shameful cold,
And prison'd behind the awful bar
That never lets in the light of star,
Only because they are sold—
Only because they are sold
To the vampires for whom they bleed and ply,
Who disown when they have drain'd them dry,
And have turn'd them into gold
Ruin'd, and bought and sold—
Who have wrung their twenty-two per cent,
From the blasted lives of the spoiled and spent.

Thou, with the pictured wall,
In the shelter, shy and hush'd,
Dost thou heed not yet the hungry call
Of the ghostly crowds that fail and fall,
Only because they are crushed—
Only because they are crushed
By the grinding wheels of the idol Wealth,
That spares none though it devours in stealth,
And with streaming tears is flush'd
Of the victims hourly crushed?
Dost thou heed not yet the accusing sigh,
That goes up to the judgment throne on high?

On those cheeks that sickness soils,
The roses of youth have bloomed,
If decay now draws its blighting coils
Round the weary face that dimly toils,
Only because they are doomed—
Only because they are doomed,

And mark'd as a tree that trembling stands,
Which the woodman for destruction brands,
In a forest grey and gloom'd,
That is desolate and doom'd;
For the sufferers of contempt or hate,
Are the innocent and unfortunate.

In the Devil's weekly bill,
With its hecatombs to lust,
We read the record and end of Ill,
That gets bigger and blacker, and rises still,
Ouly because they are dust—
Only because they are dust
For the sepulchre, but we search in vain
For the bitter curse that left them slain,
As its prey it ever must,
When they have no food but dust;
While they eat their hearts in the hideous fast,
Till the kindlier worms consume at last.

Women and children and men
Dying—and who will know?—
Huddled as beasts in a slaughter-pen,
That were free for the stroke of the statesman's pen,
Only because they are low—
Only because they are low;
Unpaid, ere they sink as the others sank,
And they leave behind not a trace or blank,
In the laughing ebb and flow,
Like the unseen bubbles low;
They are dying, and, till the tide is gone,
We toy with our trifles and yet live on.

THE WHITE SLAVE.

Thin and thinner every anxious day,
Slower and slower through the ghostly night,
Bound with bonds that cannot pass away,
Never broken, though concealed from sight;
Pale and paler, as the moments bring
Near and nearer the poor paltry gain,
Bow'd and bowing lower, fashioning

Dress of pleasure with the hands of pain;
Faint and fainter, while the hours go on,
Weak and weaker—like a shattered toy,
Here to-day, and then to-morrow gone,—
Sewing sighs into the garb of joy;
Sewing threads of dark and darker grief,
With each stitch, as fast the tear-drops flow,
Sewing sorrow that is past relief,
In the gown that is a fleeting show;
Sewing poisoned pangs that have no name,
Voiceless misery without an end,
In the thing that is a shining shame,
Where the gladness and the mourning blend;
Sewing all the woes of all the years,
Dim and dimmer with the deepening blight,
Hunger, thirst, misgivings, wants and fears,
In the garment for one festive night.
Sad and sadder, as the fingers catch
Feebly at the work, with nerveless hold,
For the constant strain a helpless match,
Beaten by the starving and the cold—
Beaten, yet pursuing, battling still
With the needle, woman's sorry sword,
Shaken by the cough that soon must kill,
Choking surely as the hangman's cord.
Sewing, sewing, sewing, as before,
For the penny pittance of the proud;
Sewing, sewing, sewing evermore,
At the dress that is her early shroud—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, night and day,
Sleepless, foodless, without hope or rest,
Slack and slacker in the grim decay,
That is now her bosom's only guest—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, day and night,
That the rich may revel in her art,
Just to give a bubble of delight,
While the worm is gnawing at her heart—
Sewing, sewing, sewing bitter sweat,
In the robe that may adorn a bride,

Driven, sobbing, by the slaver's threat,
Lest by others she be thrust aside—
Sewing, sewing, sewing drops of blood,
That are idly in the shadow shed,
Borne along upon the corpse-strewn flood,
As the ghastly headlong race is sped—
Sewing, sewing, sewing thread of life,
All her virgin grace and woman's health,
In the losing and unequal strife,
To add something to a miser's wealth—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, late and lorn,
In the fever of the tortured haste,
Noble thoughts of her young maiden morn,
Flowers of feeling, run to weed and waste—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, without stay,
Precious fancies, that should give the earth
The effulgence of a fairer day,
Set in darkness and untimely dearth—
Sewing, sewing, sewing glorious strength,
That was meant for higher, holier deeds,
And fine fruitage, which had come at length,
Nipp'd and frozen by the wintry needs—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, a white slave,
Through the silence that is thick with doom,
For the dusty harvest of the grave,
And the grim inexorable gloom—
Sewing, sewing, sewing, long and lone,
Sick and wretched, with but life to spend,
For the spoilers and the breasts of stone,
For the pall that is her only friend—
Sewing, sewing, sewing her last breath,
At the post of duty dying sore,
Till, less cruel far than man, falls death,
And the weary hands can sew no more.

Epitaph.

Sewing, sewing, sewing for the vain,
Who know nothing of the awful cost,
All the blank infinity of pain,
And care nothing for their sisters lost,

100

THE CHILDREN.

The children and the children's woes,
I hear them in the London night;
The shadow of their pain and fright,
From inner pangs and outer foes,
With icy wants like Arctic floes,
Casts over all a bitter blight.
Frost-bitten toes,
And cruel noes,
These are the portion of their plight,
The lot which should be sweetly bright,
But is a life of dying throes,
A cloud without one ray of light.

I long to hear those voices chatter,
In baby-talk we know so well,
In foolish tales they love to tell—
To hear their pretty footsteps patter,
And see them fairer grow and fatter,
As happy as a marriage-bell.
Ah, fill the platter,
Nor idly scatter
The waste that were a golden spell,
To calm the tempest where they dwell;
Though now the waves of trouble batter,
And toss them on their stormy swell.

The children, and the children's cries,
I hear them through the dreary day,
Weeping along their mournful way,
And chafing at the slavish ties,
The dungeon-wall that round them lies,
As from their blasted birth it lay.
O sunny skies,
And hope that flies,
For those who sorely lack them stay,
And on their helpless struggling play,
That drudges its short hour and dies,
As if to make but cheaper clay.

101

I want to see the roses growing
On those young faces, sere and sad,
That never healthy colour had,
And never felt the warm blood glowing,
Or through their veins the summer flowing,
Which shines alike for good and bad.
But care keeps mowing
Buds that were blowing
On radiant cheeks of lass and lad,
If hate to hunger did not add—
And if they were not always owing,
Or hunted till the mind goes mad.

GOD'S GIRLS.

There are thousands and thousands, that creep
Through the by-ways and alleys of life;
There are thousands and thousands that weep,
Trodden down in the stress of the strife;
There are women who children are yet,
In the midst of the masking and sham,
Whom the world has conspired to forget,
And the law to dishonour and damn.
By the river of tears they are sad,
And they sob, as it hurries and whirls—
“God is good to the rich and the bad,
But He cares not a bit for the girls.”

There are captives in fetters, who stare
Through the bars of the dungeon of woe—
Who in pain and in penury fare,
As if each were accurst and a foe;
There are captives, who hopelessly beat
On the walls that to shame shut them in—
Who were dupes of the coward and cheat,
Though they bear all the sorrow of sin.
And, oh, hark at the cry of their wrong
As the current to misery swirls—
“We have waited and waited so long,
But God cares not a bit for the girls.”

102

There are sufferers basely kept down,
In a bondage far worse than the grave,
By false virtue's superior frown,
By the hands that were fashion'd to save;
They are helpless and troubled and weak,
In the cold and the shadow they lie;
No one answers or heeds if they speak—
They can only fall lower and die.
Their own shrouds with their fingers they stitch,
As they wail through the storm-cloud that curls—
“God is good to the vile who are rich,
But He cares not a bit for the girls.”

There are sisters with hearts like our own,
Whom the Pharisees hate and despise,
Into corners of infamy thrown,
Who are fallen, and fain would arise.
They have purposes noble and fair,
And they long once again to be free;
But they sicken and droop with despair,
When their brothers forsake them and flee.
They were caught by the glittering bait,
And they moan, ere the thunderbolt hurls—
“We have waited so long, and still wait,
But God cares not a bit for the girls.”

There are daughters who pine for the arms
Which should shelter and comfort and bless,
Tost about on the surges of harms,
When they want but a mother's caress;
They are tender, and yet would be true,
If some hand for their rescue were seen—
If the skies gave a promise of blue,
And the earth show'd a glimmer of green.
And they mourn for the brightness they had,
When the summer abode in their curls—
“God is good to the rich and the bad,
But Hecares not a bit for the girls.”

103

There are souls to be saved or be lost,
That go wandering lone in the night,
Under scathing of scorn and its frost,
And the victims of lust, with its blight;
They are restless and wretched and faint,
From desire no delight ever stills—
With big eyes, which, ablaze in their paint,
Are all wild with the waiting that kills.
Oh, their sigh with its heart-broken sob,
Like a straw on the torrent that twirls—
“We have wearied and wearied so long,
But God cares not a bit for the girls.”

Does He care not, who lets His love shine,
The great sun that for ages has stood,
In its human compassion Divine,
On the evil no less than the good?
Does He care not, when nothing can tire,
No ingratitude turn Him to rest—
When He forms out of filthiest mire,
The rare jewels He wears on His breast?
Yes, He cares for the mournful and mad,
For the outcast disown'd by the churls,
And He suffers the rich and the bad,
But as Father He cares for His girls.

It is we who care not for our kin,
Who are slothful and faithless and slack,
Who by petty self-seeking and sin
The sweet boon of Redemption hold back;
It is we who are callous and hard,
To the pangs of unsyllabled fear,
Who with pride and suspicion retard
The outpouring of mercy so near.
Like a watchman God stands at His gates,
Which are fired with the glory of pearls,
He has waited so long, and still waits,
Because nobody cares for His girls.

104

But the dawn is approaching, and soon
Will the sword of His judgment be bare,
And in light not of sun or of moon
He will prove all His pitiful care;
While the features, so faded and worn,
Shall grow beautiful then with the grace
Of a holier, heavenly morn,
Which is only the Saviour's face.
They shall gather fresh life and be glad,
When the cloud its dark canopy furls,
At the doom of the rich and the bad,
And when every one cares for the girls

THE GREAT GULF FIXED.

She yearns beside the yawning bar,
Beside the gulf that stretches far,
For pastures glad and green,
And light that kindles not in star,
Where it has ever been,
By the pure spirit seen;
She fain would hide the guilty scar,
Where arrow grim and keen
Struck down the woman it would mar,
Who left her harbour screen,
And floated out upon a flimsy spar;
But darkness rolls between.

For, oh, she cannot see a ray
Of the old dear rejoicing day,
When every hour would glide
In glory, which about her lay,
Into the same sweet tide
Of promise and of pride;
She will not weep, she dares not pray,
Before that chasm so wide,
Where dreadful forms her footstep stay—
And none but they abide—
Which stride across the one forbidden way,
And her from hope divide.

105

She chose her home, as hapless Lot,
Who in the splendour mark'd no spot,
She made that bitter bed,
And spurn'd the hidden humble plot,
Which but a shadow shed,
Nor fond ambition fed;
And now for blessings which are not,
On paths where madness led,
She craves again the narrow cot,
And lowly gifts that sped;
But every face, as if they all forgot,
Save the abyss, has fled.

Ah, now she cannot change at will,
By any scheme of human skill,
Her sunless Sodom plains,
For the familiar laughing rill
And pretty primrose lanes,
With creaking harvest wains;
Though pale and pinch'd a woman still,
With hand that blindly strains
Into the night, which bodes but ill,
Nor washes off the stains;
She mourns for rest, as Moses from his hill;
But the great gulf remains.

“WET DAMNATION.”
[_]

(Charles Lamb.)

Dying, yet they live, and drag
Writhing bodies to the brink
Of the hell, from which they shrink;
Even as Judas loathed the bag,
That yet held with iron link;
Sick, with feet that sorely flag,
Childhood withered as the hag—
Bloodshot eyes that blink,
Slouching forms that slink—
Still they stumble in the accusing rag,
Borne as wrecks that break upon a crag,
To the damning Drink.

106

Though the bondage deeper binds,
Though the solace is but brief,
More withdrawing as a thief
Than it gives, and only blinds
Fools a moment in their grief;
Yet the sullied spirit finds,
Toss'd about by waves and winds,
Chosen as the chief
Help in lost belief,
Here a haven from the brutal minds,
Here a refuge from the wrath that grinds—
In a false relief.

Just a little drop at first,
Just enough to ease the pain,
And the galling of the chain
Which the victim cannot burst;
Just a glass, which offers gain,
When the evil wreaks its worst,
And the guilty nature durst
Not behold the stain,
And the striving vain;
Till the passion more and more athirst,
Stamps on features more and more accurst,
Branding as of Cain.

Ah, no glimmer comes of hope,
Still afraid to pause and think,
Still obliged as slaves to wink
At the crime, with which they cope—
Who, in maiden white and pink,
Once played on the grassy slope—
Now through grimy courts they grope;
And how angels sink,
Write in bloody ink—
How they daily darken, moil and mope,
Till their necks are in the hangman's rope
All from damnèd Drink.

107

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.

What has she done, why is she driven
Away from home of fairer plan,
While run her comrades as she ran,
To prizes for which she has striven?
What bitter ban,
Her little span
Of happy life has rudely riven,
Which should to its sweet close have thriven,
As flowers that summer breezes fan,
And not be thus a thing unshriven?
What is the one sin not forgiven,
By man?

Say, has she dared to break the fetter,
Which slowly fits us for the sod,
And scorned the tyrant Fashion's rod,
And social rules that only fret her—
To tamely plod,
At pedants' nod,
Who nothing know but lying letter,
When she has found the spirit better?
Yet sisters sin, in velvet shod,
Though her soft eyes are wild and wetter;
Or is she sacrilegious debtor,
To God?

Come, did she take a higher station,
And not to place and honour crawl
By crooked byeways mean and small,
As those who rule a cheated nation,
They mistress call,
But render thrall?
Did she refuse the dirty ration
From plundered power, and that ovation
Which smooths the smiling traitor's fall?
Or, by her hate for simulation,
Win a bright crown of condemnation
From all?

108

Nay, she has erred, and Fate is spinning
Her winding sheet of many a clout,
Of grisly fear and ghastly doubt,
Which do not mask the jester's grinning,
The battle shout,
And pity's pout;
Her friends will reap her goodly winning,
And only bear a casual thinning,
Not of the conscience but of gout;
For she, who had the best beginning,
Has been, while others veil their sinning,
Found out.

HELL.

Sister, is it hard that foes
Make thy bosom bleed and smart,
Stab with hatred's venom dart,
Beat thee down in miry woes,
Soiling not their dainty toes,
When in dark distress thou art?
Scorn is worse than Arctic floes,
Nor has earthquake direr throes
Than the murmur of the heart;
But the saddest poorest part,
Which for ever tempting with thee goes,
Is thy woman's heart.

Bad it is, from weary shade
To the night of wearier dawn,
Hiding as a hunted fawn,
Which would cheat the butcher's blade;
Bad it is, when brothers lade
Burdens they should have withdrawn;
Bad, when rings the sexton's spade,
The last rays of promise fade,
As the light on mountain lawn—
When there nothing is to pawn;
Though it was the thought impure, that bade
Earth in pity yawn.

109

Bad it is, when enter in
Angels, that are not of day,
Forms with faces grim and gray,
Each a ghost of unlaid sin,
Pointing each with finger thin,
To the slough of soiling clay:
Bad is custom's iron gin;
Coarse revilers' mocking din,
And the pulpit's solemn bray,
Sound that would but cannot slay;
Worse it is, by triumph cheap, to win,
Thy frail human way.

Worst it is, to vainly fight
Where yet stouter spirits fell,
Not to hear the funeral bell,
Not to see the damnèd sight,
Darkness to mistake for light,
And for freedom prison-cell;
Still to think the evil right,
Not to dream have taken flight
Blessings that with thee would dwell;
Still to drink the poisoned well,
Nor suspect the black and deadly blight—
This is very hell.

THE CRACK.

Perfect it, but for the crack—
For the tiny, trifling rift,
None would notice in a gift,
Which could show no other lack—
Perfect as the moonlight's track;
And the clouds that darken lift,
As the coldest breeze may shift,
And bring June and roses back
To the patience and the thrift;
So might it not take a fairer tack,
And not doom'd, a desperate, helpless wrack,
Down the fatal current drift?

110

Perfect, but for the one flaw,
Just a little touch like this,
That a mortal eye might miss,
As it overlooks a straw—
Sweeter form none ever saw;
Pleasant is the face to kiss,
Meant for beauty and for bliss,
If there were no broken law,
Sound of hidden snakes that hiss,
Snakes that under dazzling blossoms gnaw,
And their dupe to steps that crumble draw,
On the edge of the abyss.

Perfect, but for such a stain
Which our love would hardly spy,
Like a speck in purple sky,
Which may simply bode the rain,
Simply bring a golden gain
Unto meadows dim and dry;
As the early birds that fly
To the sunshine, she might strain
Eager wings, and utter cry
Free from pulse of weakness or of pain,
But for blight that makes the struggle vain,
Keeps her in the human sty.

All but perfect she, and still
All imperfect, became crost
With the cruel blasting frost,
Which must soul and body kill,
With its piercing, spreading ill;
Though she seems so gaily glost,
Not beyond redemption's cost,
Yet the greedy swine, that swill
Dregs into the gutter tost,
Higher forms and office fill,
Than the woman shorn of will—
All but whole, and wholly lost.

111

THE LOST JEWEL.

O say, has she lost a queenly crown,
Or a sceptre fair to see,
That the tongue of the slanderer cries her down,
And her friends in her peril flee?
That the refuse of Town,
In the silken gown,
Or the knave that hugs the harlot's knee,
And the creature that takes the pander's fee,
With their virtuous frown
Should unite to drown,
When the breakers are on the lee,
A poor woman once fair like thee?

O say, has she lost the fortune lent
To the wealthiest but a time,
That her beautiful brow is lowly bent,
And her footsteps do not chime,
As she lately went,
Not despoiled and spent,
Like a messenger from a sunny clime?
For we know to be poor is a grievous crime,
Not the unpaid rent,
Nor the vile intent,
Nor the sin from its fetid slime,
In its evil success sublime.

O say, has she lost that blessed power,
Which is armour for every fray,
Which to tumbling hut and the soaring tower,
Is yet all of their earthly stay?
Like an exiled flower
From enchanted bower,
Is she sickly treading the twilight way,
That must end in the silence cold and gray,
And the awful hour
That will each one lower,
When to darkness turns the day,
And the golden head to clay?

112

She has lost what is better than a throne,
And more bright than the bridal bloom,
Which is purer even than Parian stone
That adorns a monarch's room,
Or the diamond cone—
In the loosened zone;
She is left to the worm and fiery doom,
And the prayers that as ghostly shadows loom,
That may not atone—
She is left alone,
With her haunted heart of gloom,
Which is house alike and tomb.

THE LOST QUEEN.

Stately and strong,
Beautiful, brown,
As the gipsy who holds the flashing prong,
And tosses the hay he turns to song;
She had never a frown
For the rudest clown,
Unless some one told her of shameful wrong,
That was hush'd by the rich man's dinner-gong—
Though a sister drown,
He must feast along—
When she wept for the innocent life gone down,
Like a ship at sea, in the dreadful town.

Healthy and clean,
Rosy and tall,
She despised the lesser souls that lean,
And the pleasures that muddy are and mean;
She was first in all,
And at every call,
By the side of the bed-rid sufferer seen,
In the rustic sports on the village green,
At the stye or stall—
She was crowned the Queen;
She appear'd as firm as the old church wall,
And we thought that this would sooner fall.

113

Happy and young,
Brave at her post,
Like the careless birds, as they flew and sung,
Or on swaying branches lightly swung,
In the hostile host
She was frail as most;
She believed the lie of the honey'd tongue,
And the flattering look that laugh'd and stung,
And the boundary crost,
Though a warning hung;
She had counted all but the bitter cost,
And the Queen we followed and loved is lost.

Hopeless and lame,
Bleeding and bound,
Is she pining away in her utter shame,
As a creature without a rag of name?
Does an awful sound,
Like a hunting hound,
In her ear keep knelling the death of fame,
While we miss her in every work and game,
And the festive round?
As she ever came,
Shall she yet retrace the enchanted ground,
And as Queen again our Queen be found?

KISSING BACK.

Kind she was, and only slack
In returning ill the same,
Treading not the beaten track,
Not requiting scorn with blame;
Thus the blow in blessing came,
Clouds no longer gather'd black
On the wildest midnight wrack,
And its shutter open'd shame;
When she in her bosom's frame,
Though the world might pity lack,
Nursed a secret altar-flame,
Taught from childhood “kissing back.”

114

True she was, and broadly just
In her dealings unto each,
Save herself she would not trust,
Everywhere her love might reach,—
Everywhere her tongue could teach
Love to all, because she must;
None did she deny a crust,
Stranded on the stony beach,
Laid sore wounded in the breach;
Yet in her work'd leaven of lust,
As the maggot saps the peach,
And she fashion'd was of dust.

Kind but mortal, true but thrown
In a world of human ill,
Every grace she made her own,
Grace of haunted stream and hill—
Grace defying poet skill,
Till it set its beauteous throne,
In her every turn and tone,
Vassal to a virgin-will;
All the notes that nature thrill,
Seem'd into her being grown,
Though she was a woman still,
And the earth was yet unknown.

Heavenly hopes were in her mind;
Thoughts immense she could not speak
Bore her as on rushing wind,
Placed her as on mountain-peak;
But the stoutest barque may leak,
Giant virtue none could bind,
Oft a fool avails to blind,
And revenge upon it wreak;
So the door, though warning creak
Conscience gave that prest behind,
Swung ajar, and found her weak—
Ah! not wicked more than kind.

115

“FOR ART'S SAKE.”

Why do they pour the poison in,
With the cunning hand and the accents mild,
And uplift the glittering cup of sin
To the unstained lip of the modest child?
Why do they sour the mother's milk,
With the deadly taint of the awful vice,
Bedizened with flowers and gold and silk,
And prepare the babe for sacrifice?
Why do they throw the blasting blight,
Like the filthy slough of a venomed snake,
At the opening portals of the light?—
Oh, it's all for Art's sake.

Why do they dare with the demon's pride,
To exalt and adorn the falsehoods old,
And to draw the reverend veil aside,
From the brows that maiden mysteries hold?
To defile the Ark of a holy God,
With their touch profane and their vulgar gaze,
And to tramp where no unclean footsteps trod,
Through the solemn bars of Sinai's blae?
Why do they patch, in their fatal choice,
When at secrets such the angels quake,
But a play of the Vision and the Voice?—
Oh, it's all for Art's sake.

Why do they lend a noble name,
To the things that were hidden in the dark,
And dissect and dwell on the acts of shame,
On the festering sores and corruption's spark?
Why do they honour make a toy,
And the pearl to be valued at no price;
Debase with the very Demon's joy,
As they sport on the brink of the precipice?
Why do they gather what should be left,
And leave behind what they ought to take,
And exult in the basest blank or theft?—
Oh, it's all for Art's sake.

Why do they call the evil good,
And the midnight gloom the glorious day;

116

And the primrose path, through the tempting wood
With its idols curst, the heavenly way?
Why do they colour the flaws and faults,
Extolling the ugliest scenes in songs,
And drag (as if ghouls) from their wormy vaults,
The decaying forms of the buried wrongs?
Why do they level the pure and high,
And the sacred props of the Temple shake,
While they soil whatever they venture nigh?—
Oh, it's all for Art's sake.

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

Why do they bear the burden sore,
On the rugged pathway strait and steep,
While, as waves that beat on a winter shore,
The midnight comes down cold and deep—
And the mists rise up from the shadowy lands,
Where the ghosts of sins departed bide,
And point with their dim accusing hands
At the guilty blots we fain would hide—
As they creep and crawl,
Till they leave their mark,
Like a dying scrawl
In the dungeon dark?
Why do they face the threatening cloud,
Though the gathering thunders close and shake,
And the stormwind blows its trump aloud?
—It is all for Christ's sake.

Why do they welcome for each day,
Woes that the bravest soul might dread—
Fear, like an arm upraised to slay—
Want, like the chill upon the dead—
Pangs, that are sudden as a thief,
Startling and treacherous with their stroke—
Sorrow, that falls without relief,
Bitter and blasting in its yoke—
And the cares that grind,
As with captive chains,

117

The unequal mind,
In their poisoned pains?
Why do they suffer scorn and loss,
And burn at the martyr's blessed stake,
And anguish upon the hourly cross?
—It is all for Christ's sake.

Why do they pay that costly price,
In the service which they freely give,
When they yield themselves a sacrifice,
And in constant dying learn to live—
When they go through the hate and cruel shame,
And the stern baptizing into blood,
Or endure the scorching furnace-flame,
With the tempest-tossings of the flood—
As they upward speed,
And they onward push,
And in every weed
See a burning bush?
Why do they slave for others yet,
And from shattered hopes new conquests make,
And the love of their darling ones forget?
—It is all for Christ's sake.

BEAUTIFUL SOULS.

Are they phantoms? Do they live?
Have they grimly, gauntly burst
From the pangs that respite give,
Just a moment to the curst?
Do they move to earthly breath,
Sharers in the bubble show,
Stumbling through a dance of death,
Outcasts, to the gulfs below?

Twisted out of human shape,
Drawn as from a hellish plan,
Dark as devil, foul as ape—
Did they ever look like man?

118

Tortured into hideous form,
By the lusts that backward pull,
Tost as stubble in the storm—
Were they ever beautiful?

Strange the language, loud the cry
Struggling through their bitter state,
Torn as birds that fain would fly,
Helpless in the captive's fate;
Mortal hardly seems the voice,
Uttered for no mortal end,
Wrung from wretches with no choice
But to cry, though none attend.

Baby creatures just in name,
Old in every vice and ill,
Born to shadow and to shame,
Reared to sin and suffer still;
Young in years, but hardened now,
Huddled low in slough and slime,
Branded sore in heart and brow,
Gray with unrepented crime.

Feet that tread the doomèd stair,
Depths beneath the blackest deep,
Hands that writhe in dumb despair,
Eyes that would, but cannot weep!
Homeless in the wind and wet,
Frozen, racked with secret pain,
Stricken helpless down, and yet
Staggering to their lusts again.

These are brothers—we are sent,
Just to loose the prisoning bands;
Christ has bled for such, and bent
Over each with loving hands.
Under all the murk and mire,
Leap the thoughts that upward pull;
Plucked if only through the fire,
Yet their souls are beautiful.

119

THE BABIES' CRY.

Up from the London night,
Out from the London day,
Where the toilers for existence fight,
Under the dim and dreary light
That is shed upon decay,
And the things that pass away;
Over the wrangling and the rush,
Of the multitudes hurrying to and fro,
With the heavy wheels that crush
From the face its virgin flush,
As the dead and living funerals go,
And the reapers reap what they darkly sow;
Comes the helpless children's cry,
From the bruised and broken heart,
As the baby-wings, that fain would fly
To the home of their happy native sky,
Flutter in baby art,
Failing before they start.

O the pretty baby things,
Pretty beneath their dirt,
As they stretch their tiny tender wings
To the light of heaven that round them clings,
Though they are with sorrow girt,
And the threatening thunder skirt;
Pretty beneath the festering rags,
And the sore disease that dwarfs and mars,
While the hunger dogs and drags
Down, as the footstep lags,
And the staring eyes that were God's own stars,
Like captives strain through their iron bars;
Pretty unto the end,
In the gaslight and the gin,
Though their shoulders with strange burdens bend,
And the tottering paces still descend,
As they daily grow more thin
Into the hell of sin.

120

Above the conquering shout
And the ruin'd gamester's curse,
From the trembling lips that plead and pout,
As the troubled breath sobs in and out,
Where the mother is no nurse,
And the pocket is no purse;
Across the waves of the festal song,
While the wealthy drink and dance and jest,
With the treasure wrung in wrong
By the pitiless hand and strong,
Where all is the blazon of the best,
And the diamond's flash on beauty's breast;
Comes the suffering children's cry,
That is nothing but a voice,
That goes on when the weeping has run dry,
And the tear-drops fall not though they try,
When they sigh without a choice,
And the devils yet rejoice.

Tangled with fun and feast,
With the laughter and the love,
Comes the babbling no man heeds the least,
Of child that is tortured more than beast,
As the bride puts on her glove,
And the costly veil above;
Comes the starved and stammering moan for aid
From the poor white baby-mouth, that pines
For the lips in mercy laid
On the forehead not afraid,
With the long caress that fondly twines,
And the look that as revelation shines;
Comes the dying children's wail,
Through the mocking strife and mirth,
As with famine, blows, and oaths they ail,
Till the wounded spirits faint and fail,
In their ghastly prison girth,
That were doom'd before their birth.

121

A BUBBLE ON THE STREAM.

“The doctor he says I am dying, dying,
And yet it can scarce be true,
For I hear the poor children's crying, crying,
And I see just a gleam of blue
Up above in the clouds, that are fleeting, fleeting,
Over us in this horrible lane,
Like the eyes of an angel, greeting, greeting,
Through the crack in the dirty pane.
It is long since I saw the shining, shining,
Of the sun in its blessed power—
It is long since I felt the twining, twining,
Of my fingers in leaf and flower.
And it seems to me there is only, only
Contempt for the sick and the weak;
No one cares if our life is lonely, lonely,
If our sorrow we cannot speak;
No one pities the breast that is aching, aching,
In its sinful and dolorous nook,
And the heart that is nigh to breaking, breaking,
For the lack of a kindly look.
I have heard of the wealthy heaping, heaping,
A great pile of the precious gold,
When the helpless and hopeless are reaping, reaping,
But a harvest of want in the cold;
I have heard of the horses stamping, stamping
The good corn on the stable-ground,
While we shiver (when spared from tramping, tramping)
In a kennel not fit for a hound.
Do they know that we all are starving, starving,
Without even a crust of bread,
When the luckier folks are carving, carving,
From the joints on the table spread—
When the scraps to the dogs they are throwing, throwing,
That to us were a perfect feast?
Do they reck not of duties owing, owing,
To the poor, as the pampered beast?

122

Do they guess, when the feet go flying, flying,
In the dance with its giddy breath,
That they tread on their sisters lying, lying
At the bitter door of death?
Do they hear the moans that keep calling, calling,
Through the hush of the happy song?
Do they see the tear-drops falling, falling,
As they hurry and jest along?
For it seems so hard there is nothing, nothing,
In the beautiful world for me,
But the clouds and the general loathing, loathing,
And yet gloomier days to be—
Not a place or a portion fitting, fitting,
In the whole of the mighty land,
But this dingy hole, with the knitting, knitting,
Of the wan and wearied hand—
Not a smile for the children fretting, fretting,
In the healthful air and light,
Who just pine for the common petting, petting,
That would make their faces bright.
When I listen, I hear the sweeping, sweeping
Of the mournful wind outside;
And I look and I see the creeping, creeping
Of the shadows, that only deride
And gather around me mocking, mocking
At the grief I cannot stay;
While the ghosts of my sins come flocking, flocking,
Though I try my best to pray.
I will not believe I am sinking, sinking,
If the doctor tells me so;
For my head is full of thinking, thinking,
And my heart is big with woe.
And the darlings who need nursing, nursing,
In the hungry times of dearth—
Shall I leave them to the cursing, cursing
Of the cold and cruel earth?
Who will find them food, not often, often,
But at times a bite and sup,
With a mother's pains that soften, soften,

123

When the pretty eyes look up?
Who will trouble for their dressing, dressing,
Though they have such scanty clothes,
And will give a mother's blessing, blessing,
Instead of the awful oaths?
I am tired, and should be sleeping, sleeping,
If I only did not hear
The sound of the pitiful weeping, weeping,
Which is all I seem to fear.
Come, pets, for the shadows thicken, thicken,
Though it yet is hardly noon,
And strange throbbings somehow quicken, quicken,
And they must have resting soon.
Oh kiss me, and stop the crying, crying,
And close to my pillow keep;
I am tired, my loves, not dying, dying,
And I want a little sleep.”

She spoke, for her heart was breaking, breaking,
Till it found the solemn rest,
That has never on earth a waking, waking,
With the children on her breast.

ON THE PAVEMENT.

With naked feet, to sadness born,
They limp along the pavement hard,
But not so stony as the scorn
Which huddles them in court or yard,
Like beasts from air and sunshine barr'd;
With footsteps weary, faces worn
And haggard as a winter morn,
By raging lusts and passions marr'd—
By ugly wounds and bruises scarr'd,
They trudge in raiment foul and torn,
By all the shocks of trouble jarr'd,
Despised and famish'd and forlorn.

124

For every day, it is the same,
And every hateful hour they tramp
Out in the shadow and the shame,
Out in the creeping fog and damp,
Upon the stones, beneath the lamp
That lights them only unto blame,
And the rough blows, and rougher name
That deals the wretch his fatal stamp,
And like the coffin-sides would cramp;
Till darkness hides the flagging frame,
Which finds the world a hostile camp,
And life the flicker of a flame.

Week follows week, and still no rest,
And still no glimmering ray of hope,
While by the pangs of hunger prest,
They climb as up some awful slope,
With which their weakness cannot cope;
And still they bear the bitter test,
Like lepers branded with a pest,
For whom no kindly portals ope,
With sullen hearts that mourn and mope!
And still they feel the scorner's jest,
And round their necks the hangman's rope,
In heat and cold, and all unblest.

Year after year, and yet they tread
With sinking powers and feebler pace
The stubborn stones that are not bread,
The crowded streets that have no place,
Except for costly gown and lace;
And yet with bow'd and aching head,
With drooping limbs that drag like lead,
They fill'd a grudged and narrow space
A little time, and see the grace
Of liberal wealth for them not spread,
And passing, leave the earth no trace,
More than the snapping of a thread.

125

THE COFFIN-MAKERS.

All through the sad and dreary night,
All through the sadder drearier day,
From the first ghastly streak of light,
Within the alleys grim and gray,
Uplifted as a hand to slay;
Unto the eve that falls like blight,
And takes its mournful moaning flight,
As a lost soul its hell-ward way;
I hear outside the realm of right,
Those awful strokes that do not stay,
That forge for death its fetters tight,
And make the coffin of decay—
Tapping, rapping,
Rapping, tapping—
And with the blow that never fails,
Still driving home the dreadful nails.

All through the rapture of the dance,
All through the revelling of the feast,
When softening eyes with pleasure glance,
That cheers the loftiest and the least;
From dens of darkness in the East,
I hear through every change and chance,
And over pity's broken lance,
Those sounds that never once have ceast,
Where ruin weaves its pale romance,
Of wretches lower than the beast,
With evil eyes that scowl askance,
With wicked thoughts that work like yeast—
Tapping, rapping,
Rapping, tapping—
Those haunting sounds that nought can hide,
As closer draws the coffin-side.

All through the fleeting ebb and flow,
All through the fixèd course of fate,
While we to grander heights may grow
And strengthen to a holier state—
Above our petty love and hate,

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The idle winds that breathe or blow,
The whirl of shadows, and the show
That dies even if it linger late—
I hear, beyond the lamps that glow,
And gilded fashion's hollow prate,
Those constant beats that throb and throw
A curse, which mercy cannot date—
Tapping, rapping,
Rapping, tapping—
While, toiling as they ever did,
They hammer down the coffin lid.

DRIFTING.

She has chosen her path and will not stay,
She has wandered from pastures old,
To the blossoms that cloak the ashes gray,
To caresses dead and cold,
Drifting away,
In her venal beauty bought and sold;
She was comely among the best,
But she followed the friends that were not true,
And she thought that the skies would be ever blue,
In their sunshine broad and blest,
While the leaves kept summer's hue,
And the earth was a mother's arms of rest.

She has taken the promises of love,
With the sugared bait and vow,
And the iron clasp in the silken glove,
That is drawing tighter now;
Not from above,
Touched with the light on her troubled brow;
In her wilful wanton pride,
She has broken from every ancient bond,
And the sisters long so tried and fond,
For an unknown suitor's side,
And the awful leap beyond,
Into darkness that yet will more divide.

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She had looked at the fair forbidden tree,
And the golden fruit that hung,
And she longed for more visions still to see,
With the secrets new they sung;
Favoured, and free
As the wind that to foaming waves has clung;
And she found the furtive kiss,
With the pleasure snatched from the earthquake's verge,
And the hidden hopes the seethe and surge,
Had a sweeter wilder bliss,
Though they should become a scourge,
And they led to the jaws of the damned abyss.

She has touched with her sacrilegious hand,
That would filch from Heaven its flame,
The unholy thing that must leave its brand,
And reproaches for a name,
Bursting the band,
That to glory turns the ties of shame;
She has tasted of the feast,
And drunk of the poison deep and long,
That sends through her blood the fever strong,
And transforms the man to beast,
Till she sees but the midnight wrong,
For the maiden morn in the opening east.

QUEENS OF HELL.

All day long, week after week,
All day long, year after year,
With the hands that vainly seek,
With the hearts that wildly fear;
With the eyes that dimly strain,
Through the stillness not of rest,
Through the shadow dark with pain,
Still they labour, still opprest;
Drudging on,
Suffering sore,
Till the feeble ray is gone,
Till the fingers work no more.

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All night long, sun after sun,
All night long, moon after moon,
With the hopes that heavenward run,
With the thirsting mocked so soon;
With the dreams that only lie,
While the terrors round them close,
Low in trouble's iron tie
Toss'd in sleep that scorns repose;
Staggering yet,
Under night,
From the pangs they none forget,
To the morning without light.

Lifelong toil, as stars come up,
Lifelong care, as stars go down,
Fill the anguish of their cup,
Fashion thorns that are their crown;
Queens are they, and govern well
Cravings that would grow in loss—
Queens who sadly reign in hell,
Sceptred with the cruel cross;
Rulers bound,
Thronèd slaves,
Alway deeplier grimlier ground
Dust to dust, before their graves.

Death in life, when summer reigns,
Life in death, when winter falls,
Birds they beat their soaring wings,
Broken on their prison walls;
No one pities, no one heeds,
Cheer is not for corners curst,
Though the tortured bosom bleeds,
Though the riven heart-strings burst;
Thrust away,
Books unread,
Shut in horror, shame, decay—
Are they living? are they dead?

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THE BEAUTIFUL GATE.

She had heard of a far-off wondrous land,
As in helpless want she lay,
And outstretch'd to the stars her trembling hand,
While she wonder'd how to pray;
But yet no one could tell her troubled heart
Where the happier world was found,
Though she ask'd the labourer from the mart,
And the traveller on his round;
And the Pharisee, with his holy leaven,
Though it starveth souls that pine;
And the baby, sweet as a flower from heaven,
With its human face divine.

But they none of them knew that blessed place,
Where the tempests cease to blow,
And the meanest features get a grace,
Which they never had below;
For she lived in a dim and savage lair,
Which in haunts forgotten stood,
And afar from the teachings fresh and fair,
From the glorious homes of good;
She was lame, and in every form a foe
Only saw with her childish dread,
And she dream'd not, in her utter woe,
That this Paradise she would tread.

As she huddled low in her hopeless grief,
A thought as an angel broke
On her hungry breast, with a strange relief,
And her higher nature woke;
For she breathed but a humble sigh to Him
Who is nearest when we pray,
To whom murk of the midnight is not dim,
And the sun not a brighter day;
For the load of her sinning monstrous felt,
As of drags that downward pull,
And she in her ignorant anguish knelt
At the Gate called Beautiful.

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And no more in her need she lingers lame,
To be heal'd of sore distress,
She has put off the shabby garb of shame
For the robe of righteousness;
And she steps in beauty under light,
With her footsteps strong and free,
And now shrinks not out of human sight,
Though the shadows from her flee;
For she pass'd, by the way of better hopes,
Which in prayer before her went,
Through the Gate called Beautiful, which opes
To the pure and penitent.

THE MAGDALEN.

Pale at charity's cold portal,
Low she bows with claspèd hands;
She is but a woman mortal,
And a penitent she stands;
But a Magdalen and lonely,
Left by cowards to her fate,
And she craves forgiveness only,
Knocking feebly at our gate.
From the evening to the morning,
Still she pleads the piteous word,
In the grief her sole adorning—
“I have err'd.”

Nay, a child—she scarce is woman—
Begs with looks from weeping wild,
Beautiful and very human,
Once a loving mother's child;
Begs, and evermore must linger,
In her humble helpless grace,
For the raising of a finger,
For the softening of a face;
Begs what we concede to others,
Not by thirst for kindness thinn'd,
For the owning of her brothers—
“I have sinn'd.”

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O be just, as well as tender,
To the suppliant sinking low:
She is not alone offender,
Though on her descends the blow;
While she feels the fetters harden,
Which more guilty souls should share,
Blacker deeds receive a pardon,
Though the weak we cannot spare;
But she kneels for Christian pity,
Heaving sigh so seldom heard,
In the rich and heartless city—
“I have err'd.”

Grant the dying sufferer living,
If ye jewell'd vices pet,
Not the mummery of forgiving
Which refuses to forget;
Lift her boldly up, and take her
By the hand which helping asks,—
Set her, and no more forsake her,
Once again a sister's tasks;
Lest, when fades away the fashion
Of this world, like idle wind,
Ye shall cry to deaf Compassion—
“I have sinn'd.”

THE MAGDALEN'S RESOLVE.

Lo! her light was dim, and her pathway dreary,
And her shelter but the street,
And each day that dawn'd was yet more weary,
For the tired and trembling feet;
And she saw how idlers gain'd the guerdon,
How the sinful throve if strong,
While her back sank lower with the burden
She had carried lone and long;
But a better voice kept calling—calling—
Though the world might her despise,
Which had seen her daily falling, falling,—
“I will arise.”

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It was simply an old familiar story,
Just the tale of a woman's love,
Who had fancied death's was the gate of glory,
To be dropt like a worn-out glove:
It was simply a heart betray'd and broken,
That went out in its virgin joy,
With its innocent sufferings all unspoken,
Like a shamed and shatter'd toy:
Only one more woman, trusting, trusting,
Who awoke with a dread surprise,
And answer'd the tempter lusting, lusting,
“I will arise.”

She had not a friend to bestow a haven,
Not a penny within her purse.
She was turn'd adrift by the cruel craven,
Who bequeathed her but his curse;
Like a paper-boat on the foaming billow,
She was left to swim or drown,
Without hope of even the poorest pillow,
In the ocean of the Town;
And the ladies closer drew their dresses,
If she met their modest eyes,
As she sighed to Him who sorrow blesses,
“I will arise.”

But the Pharisee lounged to his good dinner,
And he drank his costly wine,
And that he was not yet proved a sinner,
He rejoiced in grace Divine;
He rejoiced that Providence look'd kindly
On the title and the till,
And the maidens yet were trapp'd so blindly.
Who would sate his wicked will;
While his prey in sadness, slower, slower,
Walk'd beneath the veilèd skies,
And just sobb'd with head still lower, lower,
“I will arise.”

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THE VIRGIN INNOCENTS.

They sigh from London gaunt and grim,
Where prospers all but right,
Where sunshine often is more dim
And dreadful than the night;
Their eyes with tears not guilty swim,
Like blossoms set in waters' brim,
Just hidden from the sight,
Which struggle for the light;
Though careless hands their gardens trim,
And purge of poison-blight,
Or play with any idle whim,
While sisters helpless fight.
With footsteps trembling, tired, and weak,
They climb those stern ascents;
They are, if they could only speak,
The Virgin Innocents.

They sigh from every dismal den,
In every toiling town,
With human shapes that are not men,
And fiends in woman's gown;
From murder's haunt and fever's pen,
Where food for one is given to ten,
And wretches bare and brown
Must famish'd be or drown;
Where childhood is not childhood, when
No mother up or down
Has taught one infant aught to ken,
But blow or fiercer frown.
Each day they spurn the damning spot,
Which ill each day invents;
They are, what fairer forms are not—
The Virgin Innocents.

They sigh from reeking crowded room,
From noisy staring street,
Where the low taper sheds but gloom,
And want and plenty meet;
These keep their souls' bright maiden bloom,
These have not yielded to the doom,

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Disguised by offering sweet,
Which stumbles frailer feet;
And through our feasts as spectres loom,
Figures we dare not greet,
Asking if but a beggar's broom,
To earn a winding-sheet.
They toil, and they have troubled much,
Nor one to sin consents;
They are, and we should honour such,
The Virgin Innocents.

They sigh from homes that shelter not,
From beds that never rest,
Where very weeds arise to rot,
And sparrows build no nest;
And still they stand the furnace hot,
Though hell and all its demons plot,
As demons know the best,
To trap some trustful guest;
They herd with harden'd thief and sot,
Untainted by the pest,
While tighten we the hangman's knot,
And call our country blest.
They see no drop of heavenly dew,
Nor summer's kind intents;
They are, if we our sisters knew,
The Virgin Innocents.

THE OTHER SIDE.

Wretched and pale,
Stricken and poor,
With the unknown want and the unheard tale,
That are drown'd for awhile in the drugging ale,
Passing our door,
That just gives her a glimpse of the marble floor;
Spotted, a bale
Spurnèd by boor,
She is ever upon the mart for sale,
Yet as lonely as sheep lost in the moor;

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While the priest, in pride,
Goes hurrying past on the other side.

Ragged and thin,
Crooked and foul
With the frequent falls in the slough of sin,
And the damnèd game she can never win—
Passions that scowl,
As the lecherous monk from his dusky cowl;
Thirsting for gin,
Helpless as owl
That has flapp'd by mistake into daylight's din,
She is one with the homeless dogs that prowl;
Though seducers ride
In their gilded coach, on the other side.

Trembling and mock'd,
Struggling for bread,
By the palace gate in its plenty lock'd,
And the landlord's hall, with her starving stock'd,
Tables all spread
With the blood-wrought spoils of the worse than dead;
Still is she block'd,
Weary of tread,
From the crumbs to which even the birds have flock'd,
With no rest but stones for the aching head;
And the ladies glide,
With their delicate steps, on the other side.

Fragile and spent,
Friendless and shorn
Of the shelter for others somewhere bent,
And compassion that is a moment lent
Creatures of scorn;
She has lost the flower, but keeps the thorn;
Sobbing and rent,
Loveless and lorn,
She is drifting, as all before her went,
Into utter night, without a morn;
While the merchants slide,
With their clinking gold, on the other side.

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Victim of lust,
Vessel of clay,
She had only a foolish heart of trust,
And a spirit that sported as it must;
Pretty and gay,
For a minute or two of the rich man's play;
Dying in dust,
Doom'd without stay,
She will fight now with brutes for the filthy crust,
Which the surfeited beggar has cast away;
And betrayers that hide,
They will stand at last—on the other side.

ASIDE.

Whisper it, ah, in accents low,
Safe in the bosom hide,
Let not a blast it rudely blow,
Murmur it by the fireside glow,
Tell to the ebbing tide;
Soft and slow,
Garlands throw
Over the graves where living bide,
Women and children slain by pride,
Lust in its conquering flow;
Tenderly speak, lest men deride,
Just to the heart aside.

Meekly repeat the old sad tale,
Under the breath with tears,
Old as the hills, but never stale,
Sobb'd by the sea and moan'd by gale,
Burden of all the years—
Down the scale,
Over dale—
Woman beguiled by hopes and fears,
Woman beseeching though none hears,
Shut in the shadowy vale,
Left to the burning sin that sears,
Sorrow that yet endears.

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Talk of it tenderly, O be kind,
As thou wouldst evil flee,
If at the Judgment thou wouldst find
Pity, with looks divinely blind—
Hope at the last for thee:
Wave and wind
Man may bind,
Prey from the hand of spoiler free,
Not, through the mystic marvel see,
Way of a maiden's mind—
Thoughts that could bend the proudest knee,
Won not by earthly fee.

Gently rebuke her, fondly blame
Error perchance thy own;
Fearfully lift the veil of shame,
Modestly clothe the soilèd frame,
Whence the delight has flown;
Wash her fame,
Not with flame,
But in the fountain love has shown,
Many a spotted spirit known,
Which to the fountain came;
Spare, because thou the seed hast sown,
Unto such blackness grown.

AT BAY.

Hunted about, she knows not why,
Prest by the bloody hounds,
On to the awful bounds,
Where the poor feet no longer fly,
Under the ban of earth and sky,
Laid in the restful mounds,
Deaf to all mocking sounds;
Yet she would feebly fortune try,
Utter again her piteous cry,
Knelling through Pleasure's grounds,
Wail of a heart in realms awry,
Torn on its iron rounds.

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Governing evil, victor vice,
Meet her at every turn,
Foes she would bravely spurn;
Charity cold as winter ice,
Charity none would dare ask twice;
Passion, as fires that burn
Black in their funeral urn;
Mercy bequeathing good advice
Deeming that sentiments suffice
Hunger, which nought can earn;
Demons, as angels who entice
Souls that for kindness yearn.

Toiling for what she cannot get,
Fighting while fetters thrall,
Filling alone with gall
Cup that, though full, is empty yet—
Cup into which no brothers let
Dews of compassion fall;
Dash'd on the stony wall,
Cursed, shall she suffer plagues that fret
Weakness, when laws conspire to pet
Force in its cushion'd hall?
Each helper seems against her set;
She is but one against all.

Fraud and the mighty hands may fill
Thrones for a little day,
Riot in lust and play,
Triumph, with wicked scorn and skill,
Over a suffering sister's will,
Darken her dreary way,
Make her blind footsteps stray;
But all the armèd hosts of ill,
Hope if they crush can never kill,
Trust never harm nor stay:
Woman shall be true woman still,
Keeping the world at bay.

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BETWEEN THE BARS.

Catching at straws and broken spars
Swept by their prison-gate,
Closed on them early and late,
Deeply they curse the gilded cars,
Sadly the royal pageant jars,
Forced on their helpless state;
Stretching their hands to moon and stars,
Brows that are scathed with dreadful scars,
Eyes all aglow with hate,
Teeth that together grate,
Straining between the iron bars,
Fighting against their fate.

Bloody the beast that preys, and dire
Savage with heart of flame,
Deaf to compassion's name;
Fearful the march of murderous fire,
Sparing not hut nor temple spire;
Grim is the despot's game;
All of them yet at seasons tire,
Brutes that are human have their hire,
Tigers a man may tame,
Devils subdue and shame;
Nothing can quench a woman's ire,
Robbed of the jewel name.

Yet they were darlings once of love,
Idols of fathers' care,
Babes that their mothers bare,
Cooing again as coos the dove,
Shielded from thought of cruel shove,
Horrible sights that scare;
Once they put on the dainty glove,
Once it was always light above,
Never a clown would dare
Give them a wicked stare;
Once, for the feet that shuffling move
Blooms made a thoroughfare.

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Now they are blasted, coarse and foul,
Sexless or unsex'd things,
Stript of their soaring wings,
Mates of the ghost or churchyard ghoul,
Hugging the gloom with bat and owl,
Taking what fortune brings;
Herding with scavengers that prowl,
Over their garbage strive and howl—
Scraps, which in gutter flings
Mercy that only stings;
Yet they have hearts behind the scowl,
Music of heavenly strings.

ONE IS NOT.

She was wonderful and pure and white,
And she bore the rich and royal stamp,
Which in court and college and in camp
Shows the Queen elect by sacred right;
And if social bonds might clog or cramp,
They could not conceal the lovely light,
Which as a lamp
In marshes damp
Shone out in its beauty through the night,
And pointed all to its heavenly height;
Though the world toil'd on in its sullen tramp,
Till the unknown angels took their flight.

But a woman-child, and passing fair,
At a modest table humbly spread,
Where she blest and brake her cottage bread,
Like a flower she grew in the summer air,
While she plied the needle and the thread,
Or went up and down the cottage stair;
But now that head
Is worse than dead,
And the pretty hands no longer pair,
As we sighing gaze at the empty chair,
But we hope therein is Christ instead,
When we meet to have the evening pray'r.

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Ah! we oft at midnight weary wake,
When the winter blast the elm-tree rocks,
And we hear below the jarring crocks,
And the dishes on the dresser shake;
Yea, between the louder, ruder shocks,
In the silence we fresh courage take,
As if she knocks,
And tries the locks,
Or her sheeted ghost would entrance make,
And its restless thirst a moment slake;
But the wild wind only hoots and mocks,
And we cry aloud for Jesu's sake.

We were sisters three, a silver chain,
And our life was first a happy lot,
Though the baby soon forsook her cot,
And for years has in the churchyard lain:
But she was a spirit without spot,
And we would not have her back again;
And one is not,
Who left a blot
Such that all the waters of the main
Could not wash away the guilty stain;
And we dream at times she is forgot,
But the morning brings the old dull pain.

A FADED FLOWER.

Lovable once, and lithe
As the kittens that purr and play,
She was blessèd by all, and she was blithe
As an opening morn in May;
While she follow'd the swish of her father's scythe,
And bound up his sheaf with ready withe,
Or tost in the new-mown hay
With the fingers that would not stay;
And the helpless worm that could only writhe,
Which she tenderly moved away,
And the fattening pig that paid the tithe,
Were all part of a working-day.

142

Delicate, sweet, a bud
That is stretch'd towards the sky,
She would watch the clouds awake, and scud
Into depths of shadow shy;
And she heard the flail of the thresher thud,
While the lazy heifer chew'd the cud,
Or brush'd off a teasing fly,
And she laugh'd, she knew not why;
Till the stars arose the heavens to stud,
And her heart began to cry;
And she trod beneath her feet the mud,
As the tempting hours went by.

Trustful and true and brave,
If her feet might sometimes rove,
When she dared the forge of the Cyclops' cave,
Where the smith his bellows drove;
Yet she was but a floweret born to wave
On the awful edge of a yawning grave,
That discerns the calling dove,
Not the hands that downward shove;
At the mercy of the first false knave,
Who awoke the dream of love;
Till she fell an easy fool and slave,
And the mire was seen above.

Faded, we wonder'd how,
In that homestead's quiet nook,
Though but yesterday she fed the cow,
And the pony's halter took;
Not a moment did she bend or bow,
And the gloom had gather'd on her brow,
And the anguish in her look,
As the storm within her shook;
But we hope the Saviour heard her vow,
Whom she never quite forsook,
And the bud is prest in safety now,
In the pages of God's Book.

143

A MARRED IDEAL.

Lo, it was a goodly thing,
And it had a glorious plan,
With the mighty sweep of the eagle's wing,
And the brow of the lordliest man,
Who defies his mortal ban,
And would take from death the terror-sting,
That through all the ages ran;
To which nothing mean or small may cling,
While the coming days new treasures bring,
And a splendour without span,
A crown that was never worn by king—
Had it grown as it began.

Ah, she was a woman sweet,
And she moved a maiden fair;
For the earth was kindly to her feet,
And each stone became a stair,
And the storm a gentle air
That would waft her on, and the filthy street
Was no more a filthy lair;
And her footstep all things came to greet,
While the night and morning vied to meet
In the marvel of her hair;
But the shadows wove her winding-sheet,
And the web was of despair.

She was wrought on a higher scale,
As a promise of the time
When the hours would tell a vaster tale,
And ring out a rarer chime;
From the folly worse than crime,
And the graceless acting, old and stale,
Which misfits its clownish mime,
She had broken through the narrow pale,
And its freedom stolen from the gale,
And to jewels turn'd the slime;
Yea, she blossoms pick'd from desert dale,
Where we only saw the rime.

144

But she yet arose from earth,
And she moulded was of clay,
For her heart rebell'd against the dearth,
That deforms our little day;
And the fair forbidden way
Was a sweeter home than the cottage hearth,
With its gable small and gray;
And her world seem'd just a convent's girth,
To the glorious dreams she brought to birth,
And the empire she would sway;
And, alas! when woman knows her worth,
Not that wisdom too will slay.

A PALIMPSEST.

Woman weak, and nothing more,
Woman fair, and nothing less—
Nay, a child in woman's dress,
Wounded in the battle sore,
Bleeding, too, at every pore;
Troubles press,
Quick distress,
As the billows on the shore,
On the soul Christ came to bless,
Beating as to purge the ore,
Beating as they beat before,
Till the guilty soul confess.

Not a vestige of the morn,
Under that foul faded hood,
Branding as it never should,
When a woman-child was born,
Waved as first-fruits of the corn—
When her good
Angel stood
By the spirit now so worn,
Like a leaf in autumn wood;
Still with garment grey less torn
Than the heart, by earthly scorn,
Lavish'd as but sisters could.

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Look once more with reverent gaze,
For it is a sister yet,
One a mother used to pet,
Wandering in a weary maze,
Blinded by the hopeless haze,
Thorns that fret,
Pitfalls set,
Till the very sign-posts daze
Eyes with weeping wild and wet—
Till the mingled murk and blaze
Reeling senses well-nigh craze,
But forbid her to forget.

Though the tempest on her rain,
Though the form be meanly dress'd,
Not one day of Sabbath rest,
Not a joy a moment's gain;
Lo! beneath the bitter stain,
Evil's pest,
Sorrow's test,
Dismal blots that sear in vain,
Glimmers writing love reads best—
Glimmer above mark of Cain,
Letters that may live again,
Laws of God's own palimpsest.

UNDER.

Under the gilding and gloss,
Under the purple of pride,
Yet not hidden, the hands that are empty and toss,
And the eyes that stare hollow and wide;
Refuse and dross,
Burden and cross,
Breasts that in misery bide,
And that hunger and hope for the turn of the tide:
Under the mask and the moss,
Passions on tempest that ride,
And the horrible hate and the hideous loss,
That no bars can for ever divide.

146

Under the limits that veer,
Cloak'd not by fig-leaves of law,
And undream'd of by fools that irresolute steer
To the rapids which darklier draw,
Masses that sneer,
Madden'd by beer—
Wounds that are running and raw,
With the one sense for them of Society's flaw;
Under the surface, the sheer
Hell-like abysses of awe,
Unconceal'd by the virtues that only veneer,
And the bulwarks that are but of straw.

Under the triumph of gain,
Thinly disguised by the glow,
Is a world within world of disconsolate pain,
And another and shamefuller show;
Women who strain,
Weeping in vain,
Fetters that into them grow—
Ah, the women who hourly sink, helpless and low;
Under the reaping of grain,
Harvests that plentiful flow,
Are the sisters we leave in their striving and stain,
Or in prisons more merciful throw.

Under the progress we hail,
Smitten by death and its dance,
Are the children (our children) that anguish and ail,
At the mercy of charity's chance;
Born but to fail,
Pupils of jail,
Pierced by the pitiless lance
Of the scorn that just gazes a moment askance;
Under the spectacle's rail,
Mummery, pageants that prance,
Dost thou hear the lost girls that are weary and wail,
In the ruin which is not romance?

147

THE MAIDEN MARTYR.

Sweet and soft,
Soft and sweet,
She went forth to the place where the pleasures meet,
Like the rainbow blooms in a summer croft,
Dream'd about oft,
Now at her feet,
All the wonder of shop and work of street,
And the palaces reared aloft;
Soft and sweet,
Sweet and soft,
Oh, she heard not the ribald voice that scoft,
And she saw but the face that seem'd to greet,
Not the masking doft,
With the ashes and the penance-sheet.

Bright and pure,
Pure and bright,
Like a butterfly wandering forth in night,
Which imagines the glaring gas-lit lure
Sunshine and sure,
Heavenly light,
She had never dream'd of the woes that blight,
And the bane beyond a cure;
Pure and bright,
Bright and pure,
Just a moment's jest she could endure,
Nor had reck'd of days in dreary flight,
That would not inure
The poor sinner to her outcast plight.

Fond and fair,
Fair and fond,
She had lightly taken the part scarce conn'd,
In her innocent thirst for a larger air,
Tricking the hair,
Bursting its bond,
For the last mad plunge in the muddy pond,

148

Or the slide down the slaughter-stair;
Fair and fond,
Fond and fair,
She had enter'd the lustful monster's lair,
Which was veil'd in flowers by magic wand,
With its black despair,
And the murderous sacrifice beyond.

Glad and coy,
Cosy and glad,
As a child who holiday ne'er has had,
In the gentle flush of her maiden joy,
Finding a toy
New among sad,
She went tripping in tender meekness clad,
As to feasts that could not cloy;
Cloy and glad,
Glad and coy,
Like a sailor who holds a sinking buoy,
She had trusted a world unproved and bad,
And that would destroy,
Though its ghosts unlaid in darkness gad.

TRAPT.

She had all that a rustic hath,
Who is born in a narrow cage,
For the rippling brook was her morning bath,
And her fairest gem the primrose rath,
And the farm the humble page
Where she studied the world's wide stage;
And no shadow fell on her homely path,
Save the mortar loosed by the rotting lath,
As she labour'd with weary age,
For the petting that was her wage;
Like a bud that blows at the after-math,
In the time of the golden gage.

149

Ah, the mother she loved was tried,
And the cat she had petted true,
With the linnet that for its breakfast cried,
And the donkey close to the paling tied,
They begrudged her not her due,
Which she never had once to sue;
But she dream'd not then the deceivers plied
An accursèd art, and to maidens lied,
And the promise so sweet of hue
Was a promise she yet might rue;
For she only saw, when the sunlight died,
How the heaven above was blue.

It was baited with honey well,
It was laid in the roses' lap,
And the laughing leaves that arose and fell,
As the evening sounded its vesper-bell,
With the snow of the billow's cap,
Had agreed its intents to wrap;
Not a note was struck of a warning knell,
Not a glimpse reveal'd the betrayer's spell,
And the funeral plumes that flap,
Whose abode is not in map;
Till she dropp'd, through the windings none can tell,
In the jaws of the grinning trap.

It was gilded with finest gold,
And the purple was gaily spread,
For they spared not expense of flower or fold,
And they lavished their falsehoods new and old,
To abase an unsullied head,
And entangle a trustful tread;
But though woman still on the mart is sold,
And religion shuns her, correct and cold,
And the State may refuse her bread;
Yet the iron fangs shall relax their hold,
And the tomb disgorge its dead.

150

ROSE AND THORN.

Ah! the blossom grew so red,
Flushing in the summer morn;
Far and wide it beauty breathed, and shed
Sweetness upon bosoms worn,
Tried and torn;
As if it to blessèd uplands led,
Far from scorn,
Where hearts which have suffer'd long and bled,
Find at last a refuge and a bed,
And again are happier born;
Rain and sunshine all its graces sped,
And the rose conceal'd the thorn.

Yes, the maiden wax'd so fair,
Blooming in her humble plot,
True as clock that made the cottage stair
Ring the changes of her changeless lot;
Without spot,
Still at night she set her father's chair,
Boil'd the pot;
Smooth'd the tangles of her glorious hair,
Smiled to face and feel the cooler air
Whisper through recesses hot,—
Made quite sure the slippers were a pair,
Nothing needed was forgot.

Broaden'd petals in the sun,
Brighter every tender shoot
Peep'd and pouted, as a pretty nun
Eyes the sweet forbidden fruit,
At her foot;
Why should she the grateful shadow shun,
Owls that hoot?
Why should she be shut from healthy fun,
Where the frolic winds and waters run
Races with the wandering coot?
Why should life not end as it begun,
Farther, deeper, spread its root?

151

But before the gale goes calm,
And from mossy mantle grows
Danger that would send a quivering qualm
Through the breast which bravest glows;
Hidden foes,
Started from behind the victor's palm,
Shining shows;
Hostile were the hands that bore the balm,
Turn'd the triumph-song to funeral psalm,
Ere her little evening's close;
Low she lay, who never dream'd of harm,
And the thorn conceal'd the rose.

FORGOTTEN.

On they babble through the shade and shine,
On they riot through the shine and shade,
Careless if their pleasures gall and jade—
Strangers dig the treasures from the mine,
They as hardly made
As the labouring spade,
Which has conquer'd more that scarlet line,
Or the iron walls which bridge the brine
And with commerce lade;
On they hurry, pouring costly wine,
With the costlier blood—though she may pine,
And forgotten fade.

Lately she was innocent, and drew
Many a willing captive to her sway;
Foremost in the toiling and the play,
Each succeeding hour her empire grew,
Sweeter swell'd her way,
Jewels leap'd from clay,
Every gate before her open flew,
Yawning gulfs and bounds no barriers threw,
Stumbling-block no stay;
And on her the tempest gently blew,
Which, unsparing, others weaker slew—
Only yesterday.

152

Lately she was leader of a band,
All she did and utter'd must be right;
Beautiful she made the meanest plight
By a wave of her bewitching hand,
Which on even blight
Shed a lovely light;
But she built and trusted sinking sand,
Till the tide encroaching hid the land,
Perjured friends took flight;
Now they see no graces but the brand,
Come no more with joy at her command—
Now her day is night.

Vainly doth she for compassion call,
Scatter words that are no more than wind,
Think from stony heart some help to find,
Tost about as children toss a ball;
Former friends so kind
Drop the window-blind,
Slam the door on such a sullied thrall,
Thrust her from the very servants' hall,
Only aid to bind;
None remember what she was to all,
None have pity on a woman's fall—
She is left behind.

THE UNCROWNED QUEEN.

Look beneath the surface mean,
Dwell not on the tatter'd gown,—
Arms of labour bare and brown,
Face so pitifully lean;
Where was ever woman seen,
In the billows of the surging town,
Where the many victims sink and drown,
Holding fame more fair and green?
Where hath woman ever been,
Braver against lure and hostile frown,
Than the modesttoiler, who is Queen?
Bring a crown.

153

Seek not here for diamonds rare,
Satin robe or silken tone,
Where rich fortune has not shone;
Every day is load of care,
Heavier than the last she bare;
Oft her feet are on the filthy stone,
Oft she envies even the cur its bone,
And the cheese-rind others pare,
Though she mighty is to dare,
If she grandly suffers long and lone;
Give, however idle monarchs fare,
Her a throne.

Ask not lineage, if she draws
True descent from noble start,
Sires who play'd a bloody part
In the strife of class-made laws,
Feudal system black with flaws;
If she knows the supple, polish'd art,
Which can smile above the bitter smart,
Toy with breaking lives and straws,
Govern as with tiger-claws;
She is honest in the mire and mart,
And she keeps, in low temptation's jaws,
Royal heart.

Not a heroine trim and tall,
Just a plain unnoticed elf,
With one plate of common delf,
And no picture on the wall,
Great alone in office small;
But as clean from passion's taint and pelf,
As the empty plate on empty shelf;
Hers, if soilèd is the shawl,
Which is not her virtue's pall;
And though not a man-besceptred Guelph,
Yet she can, where princes fail and fall,
Rule herself.

154

THE PLUCKED ROSE.

The rose, it hung on the cottage wall,
And the rose was blushing red;
And it nodded to the breeze's call,
From its dainty emerald bed;
And serenely tall,
It defied the squall
That around it ruin shed,
Upon hearts that broke and bled;
For it hugg'd the shelter of the hall,
By the rich man falsely sped;
Though it saw the flowerets near it fall,
To their veil'd destruction led.

From the dawn it took its tender dew,
From the eve its virgin blush,
And each day that came gave something new,
With a brighter glow and gush;
For it graces drew
From each breath that blew,
From the tempest's armèd rush,
And the solemn Sabbath hush;
And it laugh'd, as the song-birds by it flew,
To the grasses long and lush;
In its innocence it never knew
That the shield may sometimes crush.

The blossom pined in its pretty nook,
In the ill-protecting shade;
For a blighting blast the petals shook,
Till its glory could but fade;
And the friendly rook,
With the bubbling brook,
And the busy clinking spade,
Now no more its music made;
And the hand that touch'd and tore and took,
Should have held the champion-blade—
Yea, the hand that closed the opening book,
Was the guardian God forbade.

155

The rose is dead by the cottage lone,
With the sorrow black it bare,
And it has no white memorial stone
To tell of the damnèd care;
With its beauty strown,
And the fragrance flown,
In a burden none could share,
If an angel even might dare;
Though the bloom should have gladly freely grown
To perfection rich and rare,
But that Dives (with such wealth his own)
The one treasure would not spare.

AN UNFINISHED PORTRAIT.

Fair and frail,
Sweet and shy—
With a modest mien that doth not fail,
That hath yet survived the convict's jail,
And refused to fly
To its native sky—
She is driven before the tempest's flail,
On the waters wan, as a tatter'd sail
That is wreck'd and wry,
With her woman's cry,
With the heart that hears no answering hail,
And the feet that scarce their office ply.

Weak and wild,
Poor and proud,
She is cast adrift as a helpless child,
And a prey for the world in her meekness mild,
For the thunder-cloud,
Or the battle shroud;
And she sees around her dainties pil'd,
With the joys that once upon her smil'd,
When her laugh was loud,
And the head not bow'd,
Now a thing deserted and defiled,
She is whirl'd along in the callous crowd.

156

Lone and dim,
Faint and far,
As the sketch of a mighty master's whim,
When the figures only swoon and swim,
From behind her bar,
An eclipsèd star,
She is borne on the billows great and grim,
While the spoiler lives—there is room for him;
Not for scornèd scar,
Save in funeral car,
Though above her bend God's cherubim,
As the heavens of light on a broken spar.

Limp and lame,
Tender, tall,
If she stoops before the cruel flame
That has burnt beyond the picture's frame,
Through her breast and all,
With its fiery gall—
Shall we leave her thus bereft of name,
With the crushing burden of her shame,
Below pity's call,
As a hopeless thrall?
Give the saving touch of a better fame,
Or the portrait's face turn to the wall?

Fond and sweet,
Torn and tost,
She is thrown on the hideous staring street,
Among thousands not one friend to meet,
Nor a dog accost,
In the iron frost;
She has trembling lain at our careless feet,
While the pamper'd Levite pass'd her fleet,
Nor the chasm has cross'd,
At such paltry cost;
Though he fain would wrap the winding-sheet
Round the sister love had never lost.

157

Tried and true,
True and tried,
By the awful fate that is her due,
And the sin that grief will ever rue,
Like a captive tied
To a corpse's side;
She has miss'd the guiding guardian clue,
As her cheek its maiden morning hue,
Because some one lied,
And the world was wide;
Though for her was made celestial blue,
And for her the Man, our Brother, died.

Frail and fair,
Doom'd to stand
In the bitter blasts that scourge her hair,
Though the brute has got its velvet chair,
In the dreadful land
Of the sinking sand;
While she longs to climb the temple stair,
And to breathe a higher, holier air;
She would break the band
Of her cursing brand,
And the picture's deadly lack repair,
If you offer'd clasp of a human hand.

ON THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE.

Only a cabin of mud,
Squalid and crazy and poor,
And with nowhere the grace of a leaf or a bud,
And the wind as a wolf at the door—
Prying and prowling,
Hungry and howling,
Cruel and cunning and bold—
As a wolf on a lamb left alone in the fold.
Only a cabin of clay,
Speckled with mould and the moss,
With the sinister leprosy-brand of decay,
With a pallet of straw and a cross.

158

Helpless the sufferer laid
Ragged, half cover'd, and low,
With the Rent, that had broken his body, unpaid,
At the mercy of man and the snow—
Shrouding and shifting,
Searching and sifting
Cranny and crevice and crack—
For it knew how to enter, but not to go back;
Tortured he was in his need,
Faint with his famishing wife,
With the babe at her breast she could fondle, not feed—
On the edge of the pitiless knife.

Greedy and griping the Rent,
Eating up pittance and purse,
Had consumed the small savings they treasured, and bent
Upon all they would do, like a curse;
Lurid and louring,
Dark and devouring,
Begging not merely a part,
But destroying the whole, while it prey'd on the heart;
Swallowing victuals and clothes,
Prompt to be satisfied first,
And bestowing receipt but in insult and oaths,
And when paid the last farthing athirst.

Bigger and bigger it grew,
Blacker and blacker it throve
On the mite they had slaved for, and fatness it drew
From the famine which ill with it strove;
Wreaking its wishes,
Scraping the dishes,
Licking with gluttonous tread,
And yet grudging and breaking the staff of their bread;
Pinching with ravenous grip,
Dragging them deep in the mire,
And denying the drop that would moisten the lip,
While it burn'd in the bosom as fire.

159

Higher and higher it rose,
Stronger and stronger it wax'd,
As it hurried him on to the ghastlier close,
Overstrain'd, over-tried, overtax'd;
Bruising and blanching,
Upas-like branching,
Sucking the sweetness from day,
While it poison'd the peace that it could not quite slay;
Haunting, an unbidden guest,
Dogging the bed and the board,
Like a skeleton, ever absorbing the best,
Till it left but the place of the hoard.

Blanket and picture and chair,
Table and linen and rag,
From the clock that had stopp'd on the rickety stair,
To the labourer's tools and his bag;
Firing and fuel,
Meal for the gruel,
Each disappeared down its throat,
From the one scarlet cape to the one winter coat;
Havoc it made of the room,
Gnawing at even the scraps,
While it shadow'd the rubbish remaining with doom,
And it tugg'd at the lingering wraps.

Feasting on comfort and hope,
Swelling more bloated and big,
Till it dangled above, as the hangman his rope.
And it spared not the wretches their pig;
Feeding on fasting,
Lusty and lasting,
Gathering all that they sow'd,
And yet craving for more and protesting they owed;
Starving away the poor mouse,
Scaring whatever would live,
Till it drank up the dungheap, and pull'd down the house,
And then telling the ruins to give.

160

Leeches lie still that have bled,
Fire may be peaceful an hour,
And the earthquake for ages repose in its bed,
And the grave doth not alway devour;
Sometime is sated
Plague the most hated,
Never the plague of the Rent,
Which from father to son is an evil unspent;
Crime hath profundities vast,
Lust shows abysses unlit,
But the hell in which man is with ev'rything cast,
Is the Rent with its bottomless pit.

Bear thesad sufferer might
All that a man could endure,
With the demons of darkness and misery fight,
In his patience and purpose secure;
Ring from curst labour
Music of tabor,
Wrestle down sickness and lack,
And the woes that the weak not the wicked attack;
He, in the stormiest throes,
Fought, though with poverty pent,
And had conquer'd a legion of dangers and foes,
But he could not the Moloch of Rent.

Bitter and blinding the flakes,
Greater and greater their cold,
As they tightened around with the coiling of snakes,
And they never relax'd in their hold;
Clammy and kissing,
Horrid and hissing,
Beautiful, terrible snow,
Coming on as the sea in its infinite flow;
Softer than childhood's caress,
Fairer than woman of face,
But yet deaf to the anguish of human distress,
And with doom in its tender embrace.

161

Stricken, and still must he rise?
Dying, and still must he bow
To the Law, that is wicked, although it be wise,
And no respite for him may allow?
Staggering, stumbling,
Tottering, tumbling,
Pierced by the funeral blast,
Though each labouring breath that he draws may be last?
Go from his litter of straw,
Under the yoke of the ban?—
As if man had been made for the pleasure of Law,
And not Law for the service of man!

Out in the winter so wild,
Out unto scoffing and scorn,
With the tears of the woman, the wail of the child,
From their lone little resting-place torn;
Quaking and quivering,
Shabby and shivering,
Beaten as brutes on the mart,
By the gusts not as cold as a tyrannous heart;
Lost, beneath hedges to lie;
Hounded, through shadow and loss,
By the edict of Justice that spared not, to die;
And yet clinging, through all, to the Cross.

Moaning and gasping he fell,
Prone at his murderer's feet,
With a barbarous taunt for his burial-knell,
And the snow for his burial-sheet;
Outcast and slighted,
Blasted and blighted,
Kill'd by the sentence, that trod
On the duty of man and the teaching of God;
Dumb and beseeching, he sank,
Robb'd of humanity's right,
And yet holding the Cross that held him, as a plank
Going forth in the ocean of night.

162

Breathing one last solemn vow,
Dropping from agonized eye
One big passionate tear, that froze hard on his brow
Looking up at the witnessing sky;
Weary and wounded,
Crush'd and confounded,
Straight from the stillness she past,
To the future unknown and the turmoil, aghast;
Only a sister once more,
Only a pilgrim of pain,
From the shipwreck of want driven out from the shore,
By her brothers, to shipwreck again.

Homeless and hunted she toil'd,
Feeble and frail through the storm,
Of her husband and home with its shelter despoil'd,
A discrownèd and desolate form;
Shuddering, shrinking,
Sobbing and sinking,
Tatter'd, but splendidly fair,
With the courage that shines from heroic despair;
Clutching her darling, and still
Strong to protect it from harm,
With the might of a mother's invincible will,
And the love of a womanly arm.

Stripping herself of the shawl,
Needed by her not the least,
If she only might rescue her baby, and crawl
To some shelter, though shared by the beast;
Clasping and cuddling,
Hiding and huddling,
Close from the ills that beset,
The one jewel that bound her to misery yet;
Pressing it tight to her heart,
Giving it life from her own,
As though love such as hers would not let it depart,
If the fluttering wings should have flown.

163

Woman, unshielded, unharm'd,
Match'd with the mightiest power,
With the world to oppose her and still not alarm'd,
Blown about in the storm as a flower;
Drowning or stranded,
Sole, single-handed,
Fighting with numberless foes,
With the earth, with the heaven, that against her arose;
Fighting with devils and men,
Worn till she hardly could plod,
Till she seem'd to be exiled past pity and ken,
And deserted indeed by her God.

True to her babe to the end,
Tender when all things were rough,
Without fortune or strength or a hope or a friend,
And yet thus with her purpose enough;
Slipping and sliding
Royally riding
High on the whirlwind as throne,
And then tumbled and tost in the drift on the stone;
Faithful through buffets and pangs,
On if her senses might reel,
Though the frost in her flesh had set deeply its fangs,
And the blast cut as sharply as steel.

Resolute, vainly, to meet
Hosts that beleaguer'd her way
And with nought but a woman's poor tremulous feet,
That went evermore wildly astray;
Petting and pressing
Still the one blessing
Left, by the mother desired;
Though the flickering flame, even now, had expired;
Hope, of what never might be,
Fail'd, all unequal to strife—
Yea, it yielded to death and to darkness, and she
Drifted out to the yet darker life.

164

Never a morsel of bread,
Never a roof for her need,
But the sky that seem'd frowning so black on her head,
As if she had wrought murderous deed;
Nay, not a pillow
Softer than billow,
Arctic with frost and with shade,
From the region of hatred where all blossoms fade;
Never the plank of a hope,
Strong to upbear in the stress,
Nor a refuge to grasp like the life-saving rope,
But the hangman's last coil and caress.

Drifting away and away,
Far was she tost upon surge,
Of the infinite woe that no medicines allay,
Like the slave-driver's scorning and scourge;
Only another
Martyr and mother,
Thrown on the infamous street,
And despoil'd of the treasure that makes woman sweet;
Only a beautiful soul,
Doom'd to unbeautiful shame,
Like a ship without rudder, or hand to control,
Drifting out on a sea without name.

Justice, was this in thy name
Wrought beneath heaven and the sun,
Such a deed of such damnable vileness and shame,
That a fancy infernal would shun?
Cursèd yet lawful,
Sanction'd but awful,
Staring the world in the face,
And parading its grimness as if it were grace?
Laws, that are written in blood,
Waken the Giant from sleep;
When the fountains of flame, that avenge in their flood,
Overflow their Tartarean deep.

165

Mutterings now of the storm,
Stir in the stillness and gloom,
And the ghostly eclipse of the terrible Form
Has begun through the daylight to loom;
Horribly weaving,
Black with bereaving,
Garment of blood for the proud,
For the wealthy and wasteful and callous a shroud;
Now the claims binding as cords,
Clash in the workshops of night,
With the grinding of grievances sharper than swords,
And the perilous knowledge of might.

THE ANGELS' CHILD.

I

In a grimy attic on the gutter,
In a dark and doleful room,
With its paper'd panes and shaking shutter,
That let nothing in but gloom—
Where the floor had long not known the flutter
Of the housewife's brush or broom—
Where the cold was keen, and the silence utter
As the solitude of doom—
Sat a child, and she was playing, playing,
With a doll of gaudy tags,
And her yellow hair fell straying, straying,
On a filthy bed of rags;
She remember'd they went maying, maying,
By the river reeds and flags;
And her tender heart kept praying, praying,
For the mother's step that lags.

II

There was just a chair, and that was broken,
And the carpet running round,
Was the dirt, where feet had left the token
Of their tramp on muddy ground;

166

And the sooty walls were dash'd and soaken
With the rain that knew no bound,
And the tell-tale boards (if they had spoken)
Would have utter'd grievous sound.
And the dust in heaps was lying, lying,
In the corners still and dark,
Where small fingers had been trying, trying,
To inscribe their childish mark;
And the dingy smoke came flying, flying,
But it brought no friendly spark;
And the wind outside was crying, crying,
As the Dove outside the Ark.

III

And the child had lost the love of chatter,
Though her eyes were big and bright,
And a radiance round appear'd to scatter,
That was not an earthly light;
And the tiny feet had ceased to patter,
In their pretty wayward flight;
While the thin white lips had once been fatter,
And as roses to the sight.
She had now grown tired of sleeping, sleeping,
In her chill and lonely bed;
She was hungry with her weeping, weeping,
And she wanted to be fed;
For she long had fast been keeping, keeping,
As the heavy watches sped;
And the forms of ghosts seem'd creeping, creeping,
When the last of evening fled.

IV

She was but a child, she knew no better,
If she felt a little fear;
And she had no friend at hand to pet her,
Or to stay the rising tear;
And she could not read one crumpled letter
Of the picture that hung near;
And the window, rattling like a fetter,
Was a burden to her ear.

167

And the crazy stairs went creaking, creaking,
Like a thing in mortal pain,
As if now they must be speaking, speaking,
With a story for each stain;
And the cracking roof kept leaking, leaking,
At the onset of the rain,
Which on her its wrath was wreaking, wreaking,
Though she dared not even complain.

V

And her tatter'd doll was all her treasure,
In that chamber grim and gray,
As the last abiding beam of pleasure
From an earlier, happier day;
And she thirsted for a moment's leisure,
With her only toy to play;
For the suffering overflow'd its measure,
And the darkness in her lay.
But her doll she still kept pressing, pressing,
In her tired and trembling arms,
With the fingers feebly dressing, dressing,
Its forlorn and faded charms;
And the pale lips moved in blessing, blessing,
As she shielded it from harms;
While she strove with timid guessing, guessing.
To subdue her sad alarms.

VI

For a season, like a playful kitten,
That is purring by the grate,
She forgot, the teaching want had written
In the empty dish and plate—
She forgot how care had roughly smitten,
As if with the hand of hate—
How her face was sorely pinch'd and bitten,
By the famine of her fate—
She forgot the weakness flowing, flowing,
In the heart with troubles rife,
And the winds of sadness blowing, blowing,
For the bitter, bitter strife,

168

And her mother's weary sewing, sewing,
With the costly thread of life,
And the sharpen'd pang yet growing, growing,
Like a sharpen'd murderer's knife.

VII

And she listen'd to the raindrops' sputter,
As they beat against the glass;
From beneath arose a stupid stutter,
As she heard a drunkard pass;
And mysterious voices seem'd to mutter,
The old hymns beloved at class,
As she mumbled bread that had no butter
In its dry and mouldy mass.
For her mother still kept staying, staying,
Though she promised to come soon;
And a sudden visit paying, paying,
The malign and angry moon
Shone, a ghastly glimmer laying, laying,
On their solitary spoon;
While a far-off donkey's braying, braying,
Seem'd a blessed heavenly boon.

VIII

It was dainty hair, and soft and yellow,
That about her temples hung,
And around the doll that had no fellow,
Unto which she wildly clung;
But the stern north wind began to bellow,
And its stormy trumpet rung;
And the tender mouth, by care turned mellow,
To her treasure vainly sung.
For she felt the bondage cooping, cooping,
While her spirit longed to fly,
And its iron meshes looping, looping,
Like a chain across the sky;
And the sweet young head kept stooping, stooping,
Though she never reason'd why,
And her courage went on drooping, drooping,
When her heart could simply cry.

169

IX

For the opening bud was starved and stunted
By the icy blast of need;
And her joy its edge had wholly blunted,
Though the happy took no heed;
And aside from all her life was shunted,
As if just a worthless weed;
Till she seem'd a lonely creature hunted,
That is driven to die and bleed.
And it all came back, the ailing, ailing,
While it turned her faint and sick;
And the labouring breath kept failing, failing,
Like a candle's crumbling wick;
As she thought of cruel railing, railing,
And the coward blow or trick;
And amid the tempest, wailing, wailing,
Did she hear the death-watch tick?

X

And then ghostly paces seem'd to stumble,
As they clamber'd up the stairs,
With the handle of the door to fumble,
And to whistle dreadful airs;
And around her room to crawl and tumble,
Or to carry weights and chairs;
While within the chimney sounds would rumble,
Or from darkest nooks and lairs.
And there came a measured tapping, tapping,
As when fairy hammers fall,
With a sad and solemn rapping, rapping,
On the wainscot and the wall;
And the shutter, with its flapping, flapping,
Seem'd in dismal tones to call;
And the window-panes kept clapping, clapping,
As bewitch'd themselves like all.

XI

And she had no kindly friend or brother,
Whom for pity she could seek—
Who with smiles and talk her fears would smother,
And her tangled tresses sleek;

170

There was only one, the missing mother,
So caressing and so meek;
And she knew the world contain'd no other,
Who like her would stroke the cheek.
But the chimneys all went bobbing, bobbing,
In the gusts and twilight grey,
And the shadows gather'd mobbing, mobbing,
Their forlorn and helpless prey;
While the rats her food came robbing, robbing,
And more dreadful were than they;
Till the short, sharp breath broke sobbing, sobbing,
And her will would not obey.

XII

But the mother drudged for those who plunder,
By their starving pay, the low—
And who grind the weak, and keep them under,
While their cursèd riches grow,
Till the soul and worn-out body sunder,
While the tears of thousands flow—
Who are deaf to God's deep judgment-thunder,
That is storing up its blow.
And this night with footsteps plashing, plashing,
Through the rain and miry soil,
By the lamps like corpse-lights flashing, flashing,
She was creeping from her toil,
When a swerving horse came dashing, dashing,
Through the masses and the moil;
And the red blood spurted, splashing, splashing,
And her life became the spoil.

XIII

Ah! the weary struggle now was over,
And her face again look'd young,
And she walk'd again the fields of clover,
Where the lark and linnet sung,
As the passing spirit fondly wove her
The old earth whereto she clung,
And Thy kiss we miscall death, Jehovah,
In its joy about her hung;

171

And an end of all the wiling, wiling,
To inexpiable stain,
That is mask'd beneath the smiling, smiling,
As the blossom hides the pain,
Which beset her soul with guiling, guiling,
To the easy-purchased gain,
Like a felon who keeps filing, filing,
At the never-broken chain.

XIV

Yet her daughter reck'd not of the trouble
That had fallen upon the one
Who so halved her sorrows, and made double
The delights when work was done;
She was born herself a fleeting bubble
On the waves that seaward run—
She was blown, as whirlwinds blow the stubble,
In a world without a sun.
And the hours pass'd slowly, dragging, dragging,
With their still-increasing load—
The despairing spirit flagging, flagging,
On the ever-darkening road,
Like a hopeless prisoner fagging, fagging,
At the point of labour's goad;
Who, when all have left, keeps lagging, lagging,
In his duugeon with the toad.

XV

And the tunes from the remember'd psalter,
Were a-singing in her brain,
Which the wan lips strove indeed to falter,
But, alas! they strove in vain;
For the coming stroke she could not alter,
Though the pretty brow was fain;
Like a creature pulling at the halter,
Which is pulling it to pain.
But the angel-arms were plying, plying,
That her sinking might be soft;
And the angel-hands were drying, drying,
The great drops that trembled oft—

172

And the summer wind goes sighing, sighing,
Through a dusky, daisied croft;
For they knew that she was dying, dying,
And would bear her soon aloft.

XVI

But, before the dawn, the summons sounded,
And the captive burst her bond;
And the flying creature, fiercely hounded,
Had at length a welcome fond;
And the pining hope, so straitly bounded,
Found a resting to respond;
And the gloomy life was brightly rounded,
By the splendours from beyond.
And the waking birds came peeping, peeping,
Through the dirty muslin band,
And they made a gentle cheeping, cheeping,
At the place where they did stand;
The white wings of light went sweeping, sweeping,
Like an angel through the land,
And with heaven that face all steeping, steeping,
And the doll still in her hand.

CROSS AND CUP.

Sad the sight, and false the order
Fix'd on things by fallen man,
Written on the ragged border
Of the Magdalen we ban;
Stamp'd in staring, lurid letters
In the hearts that helpless ache,
In the worse than iron fetters
Which no mortal hand can break;
In the eyes so blear'd and sodden,
And with scarce a human glow;
In the spirits deep down trodden—
Cup above, and Cross below.

173

Wo to those, who mix in malice
Draughts for others dear as they,
Brimming high the poison chalice,
For the easy, foolish prey;
Woe to those, who tempt the mother
With the wretched babe at breast,
Thus the maddening shame to smother
In repose that is not rest;
Wo to him, with satyr-vices,
Although life should be the loss,
Who to fatal feasts entices,
Setting cup before the Cross!

Wo to those, who lightly harken
To the tempter's honey'd voice,
And while skies in mourning darken,
Make the miserable choice,
For its bondage, growing sadder,
To a dungeon rises up,
Till it biteth as an adder,
Breeding death within the cup;
If they hug the chains that bind them,
Just to please a passing thirst—
Dare to thrust the Cross behind them,
Put the cup of devils first.

Old and perfect is the order,
Whisper'd to the trembling heart
Read in Nature, God's recorder,
Traced in every wondrous part;
Known from cradlehood and nursing,
Taught through tears and bitter strife—
Cup of gold is cup of cursing,
Cross of dying cross of life;
But the founts that flow with blessing
Open all the heaven of love,
Unto trust the truth confessing,
Cup below and Cross above.

174

ENGLISH ROSEBUDS.

Rosebuds from the Master's garden,
Pretty English rosebuds they,
Though the thorns about them harden,
And the leaflets gather grey;
God, for us to be enchanted,
Set them in a sacred bound;
Only man has them transplanted,
Into bad and barren ground;
And the dews no longer glisten,
As they sweetly used to be—
Yea, they cry, if we would listen,
“Man, be merciful to me!”

Rosebuds for the Master's keeping,
English rosebuds pretty still,
Faded because we are sleeping,
Who should rescue them from ill;
Blighted because we are blinded,
By the dazzle of the earth,
Till with thorn-pricks just reminded
They are all condemn'd to dearth;
Blighted, and yet meant for beauty,
If they gladly fared as we,
Bidding brothers do their duty—
“Man, be merciful to me!”

Rosebuds whom the Master waters,
Pretty English rosebuds soil'd,
But not less His chosen daughters,
Whom He troubled for and toil'd;
Whom He gives the happy shining
Of the sunlight sent to all—
Love that raises, while refining,
Souls that had the foulest fall;
Souls that in a heavenlier Eden
Yet again shall blossom free,
Weeping now, as heavy-laden—
“Man, be merciful to me!”

175

Rosebuds whom the Master quickens,
Pretty English rosebuds torn,
When the wounded spirit sickens
In the darkness before morn;
When from man comes no protection,
Who can only note the scar,
Though the Lord's divine affection
Sees through clouds the rising star;
Sees, beneath the legal sentence,
Fashion of a fairer tree,
Mighty faith and meek repentance—
“God be merciful to me!”

THE PHARISEE.

Fair she was, and even penitential,
For he heard her feeble, piteous cry,
But a man of office consequential
Could not to it decently reply;
She had lost her fame, if not her beauty,
And was laid in shadow on the shelf,
And of course a Pharisee's first duty
Evidently must be to himself;
He could not deny her utter sadness,
And some twinges felt—if not for her,
But it would be pure Quixotic madness
To imperil his own character!

“God, I thank Thee, I am not as others,”
Said he, and forgot to bend the knee;
“Not as common people, or as brothers,
Who are scarce particular like me—
Not as dogs who are not sure of dinners,
Nor the flagrant swindlers on the mart;
Oh, I hate adultery in sinners,
Play'd on wine and women and fine art!
Thank Thee, I am not a vulgar varlet,
Without fortune, friends, or power and place,
Nor a Pariah, as this wretched harlot—
Who, however, has a pretty face.”

176

She was meanly drest, and social stigma
Lay upon her like a hideous curse,
And she starved, though that was an enigma
Solved not by the pauperizing purse;
What would persons think, if he whose merit
Was so obvious to the meanest mind,
Heir of sires whose name he did inherit,
If their graces had been left behind—
He should speak to such a waif and wastrel,
Who to proper airs had no pretence,—
He, with ages of repute ancestral,
And his own hard-won magnificence?

Nay, he owed it to the world of fashion,
To his country—it was all the same,
Not to give admittance to compassion,
Which might possibly lead him to shame;
If he helped her and he was detected,
Then on him would every door be slamm'd,
Better for him to remain respected,
And to let his sister be—yes, d—d;
Ah! he saw not, in his petty blindness,
Heard not the commandment full and free,—
“He that doeth smallest act of kindness
To the humblest, doeth it to Me.”

OUTCAST.

Though of the rolling world and all its wonder,
In it she has no certain place,
And feels her birth was an unhappy blunder,
She would, if she knew how, efface;
For each one else, the meanest, finds a function,
Some sort of useful work or post,
And she is left alone, without compunction,
To wander up and down a ghost;
The dogs are fed, the horses have their petting,
Which even the stingiest miser spares,
But while her lot is one lone, fiery fretting,
What brother knows, what sister cares?

177

Lone in the winter-night, when blasts are blowing,
Outside the rich man's window-pane,
And on her as she sees the gladsome glowing—
The shelter she may never gain;
She catches glimpses of the gorgeous revel,
The plenty and the wanton waste,
But her poor life is on a lower level—
The very crumbs she cannot taste;
Oh! she may daily need, and deeper languish
In shameful want no Christian shares,
And if it be all innocency's anguish,
What brother knows, what sister cares?

Lone in the darker day, in the damp cellar,
Wherein she herds with human apes,
She hears the mournful chimes that toll, and tell her
The one sad way the soul escapes;
While many-colour'd life, in pride and glory,
Goes rushing on its stirring quest,
And she, without a future or a story,
Stands still, but not, alas! to rest;
Though she is not more sullied than the lady
Who with her sin the sunlight dares,
And scared must skulk in corners grim and shady,
What brother knows, what sister cares?

Lone with her weary heart, that pants for ever,
And is the darkest home of all,
Madden'd by wrongs, and by the vain endeavour
To break the unseen iron wall;
She marvels if there are two systems moral,
And two religions from God's mint—
One for the prostitute in pearls and coral,
One for the prostitute in print;
And when she sinks at last by vilest wending
From pity that but starves and stares,
In kinder death, and has a pauper's ending,
What brother knows, what sister cares?

178

WITHIN THE WALLS.

She was dead, not as men count dying,
Nor in rich voluptuous flesh—
Not in breath that was warmly flying,
From her mouth so superb and fresh—
Not in beautiful, easy motion,
As a sail before wave and wind,
Nor the dew of the dainty notion
From a woman's wondrous mind—
Not in glances of summer lightning,
From those eyes that the unseen read;
Yet in spite of all earthly bright'ning,
She was terribly, truly dead.

She was dead, and they deem'd her living,
And they praised her glorious life,
Like a tree that has fruit for giving,
And unpruned by the gardener's knife;
Lo she thought in herself she had plenty,
Never knew that the pulse had gone
From the graces that told but twenty,
As she went machine-like on;
For she dream'd not how deep and deadly
Was the wound which none could save,
Yet had died, though the rose shone redly,
As if grass were upon her grave.

She was dead—not in outward splendour,
But in woman's sublimer part,
If her face remain'd quick and tender,
While the ashes were in her heart;
And the spirit, that should have pointed
To the marvellous throne of God,
With its heavenly birth anointed,
Yet abode in the mire she trod;
And the blossoms and magic moulding,
In their colour and perfume spread,
Hid the worm in their delicate folding,
And her soul was too surely dead.

179

But she came to the Golden City,
Which has freedom for corpse and slave,
And the angel-eyes in their pity
Look'd down on that lovely grave;
For they saw she was dead, and speeding
To the dolorous doom of sin,
In her ignorant pride unheeding,
And in mercy they drew her in;
Ah! she found a more lofty station,
In the dust where the mourners lie,
And the walls that are Christ's salvation.
Shut her in, who shall never die.

THE LITTLE EWE LAMB.

Poor were others, his was plenty,
Treasure all but generous deed;
Where, they one had, he had twenty,
Many an acre, many a steed:
Wife and children, without measure,
Gold and wine in precious bin—
Not to name forbidden pleasure,
Secret draughts of softer sin;
While the poor man, in his cottage,
Murmured simply, “Blest I am,
With my pinch of herbs and pottage,
And the little one ewe lamb.”

Flowers, from farthest clime transplanted,
Bloom'd to please his wealthy will;
Fruits, that every sense enchanted,
Left him even more hungry still;
Wearied, in his lofty station,
Of abundance too well known,
Yearn'd he for a new sensation,
For the jewel not his own;
Coveted the poor man's blessing,
As a butterfly the boy—
For a moment's mad caressing,
Craved his neighbour's lifelong joy.

180

Tired, not sated with the bounty
Fortune heap'd upon his lot,
Though the lord of half a county,
Titled, yet contented not;
Hanker'd he for fruitage glowing,
Sacred, on the other side,
From his fountains overflowing—
For the single joy denied;
Lusted for that one sweet blossom,
Springing not to greet his call,
Laid in his poor brother's bosom,
Nought to him, his brother's all.

Though he royal kept his table,
Dainties ate from silver dish,
Lived the gorgeous dreams of fable,
Spoke and had direct his wish;
Though a hundred servants idled,
Each impatient whim to meet,
Not an appetite was bridled,
And the earth was at his feet;
Still among his pamper'd places,
Scorn'd he bond that holy is,
Strove for fresh illicit graces—
Gifts that never should be his.

While his neighbour night and morning,
Slaved in low and narrow sphere,
Void of comfort and adorning,
On from summer leaf to sere;
Heard the notes of rook and starling,
Changing with the changing time,
With his one delight and darling,
Who made that small home sublime;
With the one who, in each matter,
Plann'd to swell their humble store,
Shared the same crack'd cup and platter
With that one, and nothing more.

181

Out of Folly that is Fashion,
In the licence made his law,
Came a blast of fiery passion,
Scattering every check like straw;
And the rich man spared his treasure,
Place, and power for weal abused,
And, to glut a passing pleasure,
Took what God and man refused;
Chose, though birth to him was lavish,
His poor brother's peace to damn—
Chose that lowly fold to ravish,
With the little one ewe lamb.

THE SNOW-LINE.

She came to the mountain, grand and high,
Where she heard that Pity dwelt,
But she brought no offering save a sigh,
And a heart that humbly knelt;
For it look'd like a ladder up to God,
As it rose serene and fair,
And for years she had dumbly, darkly trod
On the lowliest earthly stair;
And she thought she would nearer be to Him,
In the holiness Divine,
And she knew not of the border dim,
At the dread snow-line.

To the mountain in her grief she came,
Where it soar'd above the cloud,
In the shadow of her human shame
That enwrapt her as a shroud;
For she hoped to find a purer dress,
And to put her rags away,
In that awful utter Loveliness,
Which can every ill allay;
And she crept with clothes and bosom rent,
For the Mercy to refine,
But there was no place for penitent
On the chill snow-line.

182

For the Pharisee there his altar set,
Where the victims hourly writhe,
With the bloody laws that none forget,
And demand the utmost tithe;
So they bade her bear a greater gift,
And approach with cleaner brow,
They despised the face she dared not lift,
And the simple broken vow;
While they praised the idols they had made,
And from silver drank their wine,
While they thrust her back in threatening shade
From the grim snow-line.

And the Prude shot colder darts of scorn,
For she played no sister's part,
As she saw the garment foul'd and torn,
Not the crush'd and aching heart;
And they stood between her God and her,
With their iron forms and chains,
As if Christ forsook frail souls that err,
And forgives not women's stains;
And for these no sanctuary lends rest,
Though to death itself they pine,
And there is no bar like the frozen breast.
With its hard snow-line.

WONDER.

They were buying in market and selling,
They were bought for ever and sold,
Lay the dirt on the poor man's dwelling,
And the castle had carpet of gold;
They were marrying and giving in marriage,
And the force came to falsehood's aid,
While the harlot, in unpaid carriage,
Look'd down on the sister who paid;
And they cried in their joy and their sorrow,
From the glamour and glittering lie—
“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
We die.”

183

They admired not man, nor yet woman,
And respected no beautiful shrine;
They despised the Divine in the human,
And the human in the Divine;
And they saw not the sacred appointing
Beneath lot and apparelling poor,
And the Queen with the higher anointing,
Who went out of the cottage door;
Who was clothed not with lightning and thunder,
Like the monarchs who dazzle and feign,
But in right of a rapturous wonder
Did reign.

They could gaze at the tinsel and trifles,
At the gilt on the horrible grave,
The last pattern of murderous rifles,
And the antics of jester and slave;
They could worship the fool and the coward,
And build temples to vermin and ass,
Or excuse all the crimes of a Howard,
And throw stones from a fortress of glass;
But they would not give merciful sentence
To the woman whom reverence stays,
Who is robed in a royal repentance
And prays.

They had seated the beast at the table,
Which their God had so daintily spread,
And their God had dismiss'd to the stable,
With the steeds who partook of his bread;
And no room for the prodigal sinner,
Who returned to her father in awe,
Could they find in the frolic or dinner,
In the codes of religion or law;
For they knew not the trustful was shriven,
Not the mocker in white kid gloves;
That the throne is for wonder forgiven
That loves.

184

FIRE.

Woman beautiful was meant for sorrow,
Made to walk along a thorny way,
Her inheritance is in the morrow
Of a brighter and more blessèd day;
Every creature has its place appointed
In the awful mystery of the years;
Some with chrism of gladness are anointed,
Some with ashes grey and gloomy fears;
Mist and shadow for the soaring mountain,
For the knave his sordid, knavish hire,
Rainbows for the leaping, laughing fountain,
Fuel for the fire.

Woman, wondrous, is no common vessel,
Like an earthen pot for passing flame;
She in furnace must be rack'd and wrestle,
And baptizèd is with burning shame;
Other things more mean, that fail to linger,
Cannot bear the blinding, killing heat,
May but touch it with a toe or finger,
She within it has her thronèd seat;
Terrible the furnace's black surging,
Which doth wash away the clinging mire,
But the purest souls must have that purging,
That refining fire.

Woman faithful to the Cross was nearest,
And most loyal to the plighted vow,
And the spirit to the Saviour dearest
Is the woman who stands by it now;
Woman penitent to death, who lately
Sinn'd and sorrow'd, and then dared to touch
Just His garment, and forgiven greatly
Dared again to live and love Him much;
But most lovely she, because most lowly,
Still shall ever feel the scorching dire;
For the closest to the One All-Holy,
Closest is to fire.

185

Woman crownèd, who shall reign for ever
Over new and recreated earth,
Only can abide the flames that sever
Ore eternal from the dross and dearth;
Only she, who passeth through the portal
Of the sepulchre of buried sin,
Can put on investiture immortal,
And the heritage of glory win;
Can attain the highest heavenly stature,
Cleansed from weakly lust and worldly ire,
She to whom God giveth His own nature,
Who Himself is fire.

TEARS.

Honours for him, who struts abroad in scarlet,
And scatters death and bloody deed,
For noble swindler or successful varlet,
Who widows' basket robs of seed;
Honours for him, who wrings the mother's bosom
With nameless grief he never bore,
Who like the locust leaves not blade nor blossom,
Where myriads laugh'd and sang before;
Honours for him, who does the Devil's duty,
And virgin glory saps and sears,
Who takes its freshness and its pride from beauty—
For woman, tears.

Places for him whose tongue is ever longest,
But not to plead for purpose good,
Who with the ready sounding lie is strongest,
To stab down modest maidenhood;
Places for him, who for the damnèd dollar
Betrays the sister he should shield,
And from the refuge of his gilt dog-collar
Makes helpless want his harvest field;
Places for him who doth abuse his station,
And builds a home of orphans' fears,
Who drains the sweet young life-blood of the nation—
For woman, tears.

186

Roses for her who ravens upon others,
That sew with precious thread of life;
For her a ball-dress, with a shroud that smothers
For them their dismal day of strife;
Roses for her whose sin is not detected,
Or pardon'd, because richly paid
By feasts and follies, that make crime respected,
Which from the gutter gets no aid.
Roses for her who finds in rank a juggler,
To dazzle eyes and deafen ears;
Thorns, dead leaves, for the fallen—for the struggler,
Stain'd woman, tears.

Jewels for her who only lives for pleasure,
And never knew a moment's need,
Who fills her fair and overflowing measure
From suffering hearts that break and bleed;
Jewels for her who plays, and learns no lesson
From wholesale lack or honest pain,
Who eats and drinks, and puts the dainty dress on
And lies and puts it off again;
Jewels for her, the lost, that none borrow,
Or purchase from the golden years,
Brighter than coronets, the gems of sorrow,
Jewels of tears.

BEFORE THE FLOOD.

They were buying and selling, they ate and drank,
And the years went gaily on;
While the sunlight rose, and the sunlight sank,
As it did in the seasons gone.
They married and gave in marriage still,
As the morning follow'd night;
There was place for the toiling men of skill,
And power for men of might.
They were weeping, just as they ever wept,
And the cruel hands shed blood,
And they laugh'd in spite of the hearts bereft—
Before the Flood.

187

They are buying and selling, they eat and drink,
And the world looks youthful yet;
While the moonbeams play on the earthquake's brink,
And the roses with thorns are set.
They marry and give in marriage,
And they crowd the funeral way;
And the lovers make their plighted vow,
That is broken before the day.
And the State is girdled with walls of fire,
And the Church baptised in blood,
And the gold is gather'd from pits of mire—
Before the Flood.

There are wars and rumours of war on land,
There are signs in the stars and moon;
And the waves beat over the crumbling strand,
And the sun is dark at noon;
For distress, of the coming evils born,
On the troubled nations lies;
And a light, that was never the light of morn,
Hangs red in the angry skies.
There are famines and pestilence and woes,
And brother takes brother's blood,
And the earth is shaken with travail-throes—
Before the Flood.

The seducer yet does the Devil's will,
And the dirty work he loves,
Fall the lustful hands that more than kill
On the plumage of our doves;
For the wings are broken that would soar,
Aloft to the seat of Grace,
And the golden head with grief is hoar,
And it hath no resting-place;
Yea, the heart is wrung with a shameful wrong,
And the bosom stain'd with blood,
And our doves have lost their heavenly song—
Before the Flood.

188

The shadow, that bodes the awful night,
On divided kingdoms falls;
And it lowers between the stateman's sight,
And our tottering iron walls.
The prophets prophesy falsehoods sweet,
And the friends their friends betray;
And we hear the tramp of the bearers' feet
That will carry the corpse away.
There is pleasure that stands in God's high throne,
There are sorrows written in blood,
The foundations rock from their heart of stone—
Before the Flood.

THE WAKING OF THE GIANT.

Ho! a murmur from the morning,
And a moaning from the west,
While the bride forgets adorning,
And the jewel on her breast;
And the bridegroom stops to hearken
At the terror of the tale,
Till his eyes with trouble darken,
And his knitted brows turn pale;
Yea, the idlers cease to dabble
In their follies as they fly,
And the revellers stay their babble,
For they know the sullen cry.

From the north comes breath of paining,
And a sighing from the south,
And a smother'd grim complaining
Out of every hungry mouth;
With a fierce, uneasy motion,
As of fever's fiery sway,
Which the ruler's magic potion
Has no longer power to lay.
And the things that cringe and sicken
Would their souls for safety sell,
As they stumble blindly, stricken
By that message hot from hell.

189

It's the stirring of the Giant,
From beneath his ponderous chains,
Where he stretches, dim, defiant,
And his rotten limits strains;
As he feels his fetters shaken
By the anarchy of strife,
And begins at length to waken
To his old tempestuous life;
While he chafes at bonds, and mountains
Of abuses heap'd as dust,
And would burst in flaming fountains
From his cracking lava-crust.

Amid clang of trump and tabor,
He has heard the growing fight
Between capital and labour,
Between misery and might;
He has noted rank division
In the helmsmen of the State;
For he thrives on indecision
And the counsels always late;
And behind his iron border
He is gathering like a flood,
Till he rends the bounds of order,
And goes rushing forth in blood.

In the bulwarks of the highway
There is loosening of old cords,
With a plotting in the by-way,
And a sharpening as of swords;
Around hearts that once were trustful,
Doubt has drawn its serpent coil,
And the patient hands, turn'd lustful,
Are refusing now to toil;
With their children's toys they trifle,
And away their fortunes fool,
Or they clutch at steel and rifle,
That so lately held the tool.

190

Ha! the ravens see the token,
The horizon hung in black,
With the breaking ties or broken,
And the wolves are on the track;
There is trembling in the nations,
And profaned is holy ground,
By the earthquake tried foundations
Have been weighed, and wanting found.
For the days of peace are number'd,
And devouring comes the pest,
And the giant, who has slumber'd
Long, is waking from his rest.

In their dovecote wantons flutter,
At the sound of curses deep—
At the menaces that mutter
Through the veil of silken sleep;
There is woe of wither'd features,
As they huddle low and faint,
Where they lie like hunted creatures,
And wax pallid through their paint.
For athwart the venal kisses,
Falls the shadow of the change,
Which in icy whisper hisses
Of a judgment stern and strange.

In the leprous court and alley,
Where the victims vow'd to lust,
Rue the perjurers who dally
With their manhood's sacred trust;
In the brothel, on low stages,
Where the outraged beauty seeks,
The dark work, and damnèd wages
To repair the wasted cheeks;
From the lips, that now no glamour
Have for bosoms turned to frost,
Steals the mournful, muffled clamour
Of the ruin'd and the lost.

191

From the cellar's grimy cavern,
And the loft beneath the tiles;
From the gay and gilded tavern
With the poison wreathed in smiles;
From a thousand ugly corners,
In the prison and the slum,
Where lie skulking fools of scorners,
Rises hatred's stifled hum;
From the mouths of children, trodden
To the gutter in their troth,
With their features old and sodden,
Gurgles up the smother'd oath.

Lo! across the palace portal
Stride the footsteps of the Form
Which is feared by all things mortal,
And which rides upon the storm;
It deflowers the golden cages,
That give up their stolen store,
And undoes the work of ages—
But to build again in gore;
For the Giant comes to shatter
All the ancient laws that bind,
And the bars of men to scatter
Like the stubble in the wind.

PROGRESS?

Boasted Progress, what art thou?
God, or devil from the pit,
Reeking of the grime and grit
Belch'd by mills, which myriad bow
To the wheels that cravens cow?
Curse, from which all beauties flit,
Tender grace and holy vow,
Giant work and flashing wit,
Which the worlds together knit?
Blood is on thy wrinkled brow,
Darkens flame we wonder how,
As by fires infernal lit.

192

Boasted Progress, to the strong
Kindly, crushing down the weak,
If the vessel do but leak;
While preserving shame and wrong,
When they shout the victor-song,
In their worst and wildest freak;
With thy scornful scourging thong,
Driving serfs, who dare not speak,
From thy sad and sunless peak,
To the gulfs where thunders throng;
Ha! thy victims, cheated long,
Yet on thee revenge shall wreak.

Boasted Progress, with a knell
For each old and lovely shape,
Crown'd by thee with funeral crape,
Swamp'd by thy confounding swell,
Fallen as the dead leaves fell;
Sweeping bloom from purple grape,
From the flower its fragrant smell,
Leaving wounds that bleed and gape,
Until man return to ape;
Drifting whither none can tell,
Not to heaven—if not to hell,
On the rocks no crimes escape.

Boasted Progress, fattening still
On the hearts of holy men,
Bringing children forth, and then
Feeding on them at thy will,
Making evermore to kill
Wretches in thy butcher's pen;
Yet without one human thrill,
In thy workshop like a den—
Whether draining life or fen,
Heaping up the tomb or till,
Heedless of the good or ill—
If but onward be thy ken.

193

Boasted Progress, what has lack
Gather'd from thy laws, that thrust
Individuals into dust?
High on revolution's wrack,
Scattering roses in its track,
Sanctifying every lust,
Until homes are hung in black;
Sway'd by every passing gust,
Which may swell the dotard's trust,
Thou art only travelling back
To thy womb—the sulphurous crack,
In the thin volcanic crust.

Boasted Progress, with thy whell
Grinding unto fool and knave,
For the dastard and the brave
Equal weight—while sufferers kneel
Vainly to those arms of steel;
If thy path destroy or save
Careless, so that some one feel
Something of the rolling wave—
So that man become thy slave,
Though the sad and helpless reel;
Ah! we know that iron heel
Marches over women's grave.

THE ANGEL IN THE STONE.

Rugged, rude, the marble lay,
Foul, neglected, dark, and lone,
Little light upon it shone,
Though all round was glorious day;
Went the world about its way,
Mix'd with flower and bleaching bone,
Festive trump and funeral tone,
Hands upheld to kill and pray;
Now and then a fitful ray,
Caught it like a virgin zone,
While beneath the miry clay,
Slept an angel in the stone.

194

Comes the heavenly master, strong,
Wise to see through beggar's clout,
Hear above the ribald shout;
Glimpses of redeemèd wrong,
Echoes of eternal song,
Triumph in the vanquish'd rout;
Marks through mocking filth and flout,
Binding as a captive thong,
Grace unearthly treasured long,
Wings that flutter, lips that pout,
And though fairer forms among,
Lets the prison'd angel out.

Well he work'd, because he drew
Vision from beyond the bars
Mortal, and those muddy jars,
That on others bondage threw;
Vainly tempests on him blew,
Scorn that blocks the conquering cars,
Viler praise that only mars,
As his labours loftier grew;
For the secret tale he knew,
And below the hateful scars,
He of those bright angel few,
Saw the angel and the stars.

Stony many a bosom lies
Lost, a hopeless wreck, as erst
Grovell'd man in Nature curst,
Groping under veilèd skies;
Yet the spirit dimly tries,
Truly, wildly, at its worst,
From its dungeon-tomb to burst,
Though from frequent aid it flies;
Ah! it mutely, sadly cries
For the founts that quench the thirst
Would we help the angel rise,
Then must we be angels first.

195

GOD IS KING.

God is King—albeit the globe
Walks along a twilight way,
And the fringe of woman's robe
Sullied is with miry clay;
Though the watching brow is worn,
And her heart hath never rest,
While the bitter earthly thorn
Pierceth yet her human breast;
Though the clog of brutal bans,
Curbs her soaring angel-wing,
And the sceptre seemeth man's—
God is King.

God is King—albeit the head
Of our sister bendeth low,
And the ashes thick are spread
On her tresses' heavenly glow;
Though the sackcloth to her cleaves,
Where the bridal beauty shone,
As the autumn to the leaves
That are dead, and yet hang on;
Though her footsteps totter down
To the gulfs that shadows fling,
And usurpers wear the crown—
God is King.

God is King—albeit the hand,
Meant in myriad paths to bless,
Bound if by a golden band,
May not conquer to caress—
May not scatter, as it ought,
Love's divine and fruitful seed,
Carrying out the glorious thought
Into still more glorious deed;
Though the joyous maiden tone
Now hath lost its queenly ring,
And another fills His throne—
God is King.

196

God is King—albeit the looks
Of the daughters He hath framed,
To delight as sacred books,
By His fallen sons are shamed;
Though the Devil planteth lust
Even in fair forbidden ground,
Palaced above temples' dust,
In the holiest holy found;
Though man, more than Devil, wreak
Wrath on God's most precious thing,
And His children's breasts are weak—
God is King.

University of Virginia Library

DEDICATION.

PREFACE.

“HAVE WE NOT ALL ONE FATHER?”

WOMEN MUST WEEP.

THE DIVINE COMMISSION.

GOD'S MAN.

THE HOLY WAR.

THE WHITE CROSS.

BETWEEN THE BANKS.

THE BLACK COUNTREE.

A WOMAN'S HEART.

ON THE THRESHOLD.

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

THE UNKNOWN GODDESS.

FAIR AND FRAIL.

THY POOR SISTER.

THE BABY INNOCENTS.

THE CRY AND THE CURSE.

APPRENTICED TO DEATH.

ONLY A DOVE.

POOR AND PROUD.

THE SUCKED ORANGE.

NOBODY'S CHILD.

THE CRY OF THE WOMAN-CHILD.

WOMAN.

A LADY.

Noblesse oblige.

DIGGING THEIR GRAVES.

BLIGHTED BUDS.

NOT WICKED, BUT WEAK.

LOST.

ONE MORE—A CHRISTMAS SHADOW.

THE GOLDEN GATE.

A FALLEN STAR.

A CUP OF WATER.

A CRUST OF BREAD.

[I.]

II.

THY POOR BROTHER.

THE SACRIFICE.

PITY THE BABIES.

THE SERPENT'S COILS.

THE SHAPING OF THE SHROUD.

THE CHILDREN'S PRAYER.

A LEAP IN THE DARK.

THE LEPER.

BLACK ROSES.

OVER THE THRESHOLD.

EXTREMES MEET, OR THE POOR CHINEE

LIGHT AND SHADE—A CONTRAST.

Light.

Shade.

Light.

Shade.

AT OUR DOOR.

THE WHITE SLAVE.

Epitaph.

THE CHILDREN.

GOD'S GIRLS.

THE GREAT GULF FIXED.

“WET DAMNATION.” [_] (Charles Lamb.)

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.

HELL.

THE CRACK.

THE LOST JEWEL.

THE LOST QUEEN.

KISSING BACK.

“FOR ART'S SAKE.”

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

BEAUTIFUL SOULS.

THE BABIES' CRY.

A BUBBLE ON THE STREAM.

ON THE PAVEMENT.

THE COFFIN-MAKERS.

DRIFTING.

QUEENS OF HELL.

THE BEAUTIFUL GATE.

THE MAGDALEN.

THE MAGDALEN'S RESOLVE.

“WET DAMNATION.”
[_]

(Charles Lamb.)