 | 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition |  |
BEAUTY IN THE BEAST.
Clothed—nay, unclothed in dismal rags,
Foul with yet filthier skin,
Haggard and thwart and thin,
As her shambling, shuffling footstep drags,
While her troubled breathing fails and flags,
Down in the hellish din;
Gray, with no human grin,
Is she Beast that still in darkness lags,
Clutching her like a gin,
That is driving on the iron crags,
Or awaits the hangman's grip and gags?
—Is there Beauty none within?
Foul with yet filthier skin,
Haggard and thwart and thin,
As her shambling, shuffling footstep drags,
While her troubled breathing fails and flags,
Down in the hellish din;
Gray, with no human grin,
Is she Beast that still in darkness lags,
Clutching her like a gin,
That is driving on the iron crags,
Or awaits the hangman's grip and gags?
—Is there Beauty none within?
Wild, with the terror of the doom
Owned and deserved, but still
Hated with all her will,
She has found in London's length no room,
Nor a refuge in the deepest gloom,
Nothing but ache and ill,
Curses that slowly kill;
Is there not for her a beggar's broom,
Broken must life but spill,
And that heart which is a royal tomb
Never rise again to bud and bloom,
And a woman's empire fill?
Owned and deserved, but still
Hated with all her will,
She has found in London's length no room,
Nor a refuge in the deepest gloom,
Nothing but ache and ill,
Curses that slowly kill;
Is there not for her a beggar's broom,
Broken must life but spill,
And that heart which is a royal tomb
Never rise again to bud and bloom,
And a woman's empire fill?
Fallen, and yet she fain would reach
Hands so unsexed and dark,
Up to the glimmering spark
Of the heavenly hope, which sunbeams teach,
And the vesper breezes dimly preach,
Sung by the cagèd lark,
Breathed in the lordly park
If the storm would cast upon the beach
Wrecked, the poor foundering bark—
If there only were one God for each,
Or one measure fair for every breach,
And in Church indeed an Ark.
Hands so unsexed and dark,
Up to the glimmering spark
Of the heavenly hope, which sunbeams teach,
And the vesper breezes dimly preach,
Sung by the cagèd lark,
Breathed in the lordly park
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Wrecked, the poor foundering bark—
If there only were one God for each,
Or one measure fair for every breach,
And in Church indeed an Ark.
Dead, and she fights against her fate,
Catching, though love has ceast
Out of the sullen East,
At the wretched straw of the pulpit's prate,
And the cowards who misguide the State,
Profited not the least,
Governed that they may feast;
Though the worms alone would with her mate,
And the billows boil like yeast;
For if long in sin she wanders late,
Still for her may Mercy ope the Gate;
—There is Beauty in the Beast.
Catching, though love has ceast
Out of the sullen East,
At the wretched straw of the pulpit's prate,
And the cowards who misguide the State,
Profited not the least,
Governed that they may feast;
Though the worms alone would with her mate,
And the billows boil like yeast;
For if long in sin she wanders late,
Still for her may Mercy ope the Gate;
—There is Beauty in the Beast.
| 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition | |