Glittered a lonely star.

[Pg 32]

While the hills and the streams of the world went past us,

And the long train roared and rolled

Southward, and dusk was falling,

She nodded against the gold.

AN EAST-END COFFEE-STALL

Down the dark alley a ring of orange light

Glows. God, what leprous tatters of distress,

Droppings of misery, rags of Thy loneliness

Quiver and heave like vermin, out of the night!

Like crippled rats, creeping out of the gloom,

O Life, for one of thy terrible moments there,

Lit by the little flickering yellow flare,

Faces that mock at life and death and doom,

Faces that long, long since have known the worst,

Faces of women that have seen the child

Waste in their arms, and strangely, terribly, smiled

When the dark nipple of death has eased its thirst;

Faces of men that once, though long ago,

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