DEPLORING ITS UNWORTHINESS THE MORE, BECAUSE EXCELLENCE ALONE CAN HARMONIZE WITH WORTH LIKE HIS; AND ALTHOUGH HIS BROTHER FOXHUNTERS WILL MARVEL WHY SUCH A COMPOSITION SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO ONE OF THEM; — I DEDICATE THIS CYCLE OF REVOLUTIONARY SONNETS .

Toy of the Titans! Tiny Harp! again
I quarrel with the order of thy strings,
Establish'd by the law of sonnet-kings,
And us'd by giants who do nought in vain.
Was Petrarch, then mistaken in the strain
That charms Italia? Were they tasteless things.
That Milton wrought? And are they mutterings

Pale
Thro' the thick vagueness of the vaporous night,
From the dark alley, with a clouded light,
Two rheumy, melancholy lampions flare.
They are the eyes of the Police.
In there,
Down the dark archway, thro' the greasy door,
Passionately pushing past the three or four
Complacent constables that cluster'd round
A costermonger, in the gutter found
Incapably, but combatively, drunk,
The woman hurried. Thro' the doorway slunk
A peaky pinch'd-up child with frighten'd face,
Important witness in some murder case

Hurriedly, she bent
Above her grim companion, in whose ear
She mutter'd, hoarse and quick ... " Make haste! see here.
There's bread enough for all of us. Get up!
Quick! quick! and come away. To-night we'll sup,
To-morrow we'll not starve ... another day,
Another ... and then, let come what come may!
Off! off! "
No answer.
To the stolid sky
The stolid face was turn'd immovably.
The sky was dark: the face was dark. The face
And sky were silent both: you could not trace

Meanwhile the wolfish face,
Resettled to its customary place,
Was staring as before, into the sky,
Stolid. The other woman heavily
Gather'd herself together, bruised, in pain,
Half rose up, slipp'd on something, and again
Sank feebly back upon her hand.
But now
What new emotion shakes her? Doth she know
What this is, that her fingers on the stone
Have felt, and, feeling, close so fiercely on!
This pocket-book? with gold enough within
To feed ... Alas! and must it be a sin

Just then there broke
Down the dim street (and any sound just then,
Shaped from the natural utterance of men,
To still that echoed howl, had brought relief
To her sick senses) a loud shout ... " Stop, thief!
Stop, thief! "
A man rush'd by those women, — rush'd
So vehemently by them, that he brush'd
Their raggedness together, — as he pass'd,
Dropp'd something on the pavement, — and was fast
Wrapp'd in the rainy vapours of the night,
That, in a moment, smear'd him out of sight,
And, in a moment after, let emerge

She who had stumbled on it shrank away
Abasht; not daring, at the first, to say
Such words as, meant for comfort, might have been
Too much like insult to that grim-faced Queen,
Or King, whiche'er it was, of Wretchedness.
Her own much misery seem'd so much less
Than this, flung down before her, — by God sent,
It may have been, for her admonishment.
But, at the last, she timidly drew near
And whisper'd faintly in the creature's ear,
" Have you no home? "
No look even made reply,
Much less a word. But on the stolid sky

Grey and grisly 'neath this sky
Of bitter darkness, gleam'd the long blind wall
Of that grim institute, we English call
The Poor-House.
We build houses for our poor,
Pay poor-rates, — do our best, indeed, to cure
Their general sickness by all special ways,
If not successful, still deserving praise.
Yet misery increases faster still
Than means to feed it, tho' we tax the till
To cram the alms-box. Which is passing strange,
Seeing that this England in the world's wide range
Ranks wealthiest of the nations of the earth.

Dark darker grows. The lamps
Of London, flaring thro' the foggy damps,
Glare up and down the grey streets ghostily,
And the long roaring of loud wheels rolls by.
The huge hump-shoulder'd bridge is reach'd. She stops.
The shadowy stream beneath it slides and drops
With sulky sound between the arches old.
She eyed it from the parapet. The cold
Clung to her, creeping up the creepy stream.
The enormous city, like a madman's dream,
Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare,
Beat on her brain. Some Tempter whisper'd,

'T WAS neither day nor night, but both together
Mix'd in a muddy smear of London weather,
And the dull pouring of perpetual
Dim rain was vague, and vast, and over all.

She stray'd on thro' the rain, and thro' the mud,
That did the slop-fed filmy city flood,
Meekly unmindful as are wretches, who,
Accustom'd to discomfortings, pursue
Their paths scarce conscious of the more or less
Of misery mingled with each day's distress.
Albeit the ghostly rag, too thin to call
Even the bodily remnant of a shawl,

Let me alone I prethee in thys Cell,
Entice me not into the Citties hell;
Tempt me not forth this Eden of content,
To tast of that which I shall soone repent:
Prethy excuse me, I am not alone
Accompanied with meditation,
And calme content, whose tast more pleaseth me
Then all the Citties lushious vanity.
I had rather be encoffin'd in this chest
Amongst these bookes and papers I protest,
Then free-booting abroad purchase offence,
And scandale my calme thoughts with discontents.
Heere I conuerse with those diuiner spirits,