Part 14

Still with the great panting love-chase All its running sap is warmed;— But from head to foot the virgin Is transfigured and transformed.

Changed!—yet the green Dryad nature Is instinct with human ties, And above its anguish’d lover Breathes pathetic sympathies;

Sympathies of love and sorrow; Joy in her divine escape; Breathing through her bursting foliage Comfort to his bending shape.

Vainly now the floating Naiads Seek to pierce the laurel maze, Nought but laurel meets their glances, Laurel glistens as they gaze.

Nought but bright prophetic laurel! Laurel over eyes and brows, Over limbs and over bosom, Laurel leaves and laurel boughs!

And in vain the listening Dryad Shells her hand against her ear!— All is silence—save the echo Travelling in the distance drear.

LONDON BY LAMPLIGHT

THERE stands a singer in the street, He has an audience motley and meet; Above him lowers the London night, And around the lamps are flaring bright.

His minstrelsy may be unchaste— ’Tis much unto that motley taste, And loud the laughter he provokes From those sad slaves of obscene jokes.

But woe is many a passer by Who as he goes turns half an eye, To see the human form divine Thus Circe-wise changed into swine!

Make up the sum of either sex That all our human hopes perplex, With those unhappy shapes that know The silent streets and pale cock-crow.

And can I trace in such dull eyes Of fireside peace or country skies? And could those haggard cheeks presume To memories of a May-tide bloom?

Those violated forms have been The pride of many a flowering green; And still the virgin bosom heaves With daisy meads and dewy leaves.

But stygian darkness reigns within The river of death from the founts of sin; And one prophetic water rolls Its gas-lit surface for their souls.

I will not hide the tragic sight— Those drown’d black locks, those dead lips white, Will rise from out the slimy flood, And cry before God’s throne for blood!

Those stiffened limbs, that swollen face,— Pollution’s last and best embrace, Will call, as such a picture can, For retribution upon man.

Hark! how their feeble laughter rings, While still the ballad-monger sings, And flatters their unhappy breasts With poisonous words and pungent jests.

O how would every daisy blush To see them ’mid that earthy crush! O dumb would be the evening thrush, And hoary look the hawthorn bush!

The meadows of their infancy Would shrink from them, and every tree, And every little laughing spot, Would hush itself and know them not.

Precursor to what black despairs Was that child’s face which once was theirs! And O to what a world of guile Was herald that young angel smile!

That face which to a father’s eye Was balm for all anxiety; That smile which to a mother’s heart Went swifter than the swallow’s dart!

O happy homes! that still they know At intervals, with what a woe Would ye look on them, dim and strange, Suffering worse than winter change!

And yet could I transplant them there, To breathe again the innocent air Of youth, and once more reconcile Their outcast looks with nature’s smile;

Could I but give them one clear day Of this delicious loving May, Release their souls from anguish dark, And stand them underneath the lark;—

I think that Nature would have power To graft again her blighted flower Upon the broken stem, renew Some portion of its early hue;—

The heavy flood of tears unlock, More precious than the Scriptured rock; At least instil a happier mood, And bring them back to womanhood.

Alas! how many lost ones claim This refuge from despair and shame! How many, longing for the light, Sink deeper in the abyss this night!

O, crying sin! O, blushing thought! Not only unto those that wrought The misery and deadly blight; But those that outcast them this night!