Past brightly lit mansions whence music and singing

[65]

Came borne like a scent through the close-curtained casement,

To vaults in whose shadow wild outcasts were hiding

Their misery deep in the gloom of the basement.

By vociferous taverns where women were biding

With features all withered, distorted, aghast;

Some sullenly silent, some brutally chiding,

Some reeling away into gloom as I passed

On, on, through lamp-lighted and fountain-filled places,

Where throned in rich temples, resplendent and vast,

The Lord of the City is deafened with praises

As worshipping multitudes kneel as of old;

Nor care for the crowds of cadaverous faces,

[66]

The men that are marred and the maids that are sold—

Inarticulate masses promiscuously jumbled

And crushed 'neath their Juggernaut idol of gold.

Lost lives of great cities bespattered and tumbled,

Black rags the rain soaks, the wind whips like a knout,

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