The faces viewed along a teeming street -- The leer of lecherous greed, the dagger eyes, The red-veined cheeks, the frosty-cool surmise, The insolence, edged and barbed with old conceit, The carmine lips of girls, the gnarled defeat Shrunken on lineaments, too starkly wise, Of a gaunt beggar; the crass compromise Bloated on jowls self-labelled "Fraud!" and "Cheat!" The pale and toil-wracked brow, the chalky skin Of children, and the drunkard's crimson stare, -- All these commingle, till one groans aloud As in some nightmare-harrowed cave of sin, Beholding, on each wheel-pressed thoroughfare, Scampering shades in a hell-driven crowd! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RIVER STOUR by WILLIAM BARNES THE PATIENT WAYS by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE BEFORE VICKSBURG by GEORGE HENRY BOKER FAMILIARITY DANGEROUS by VINCENT BOURNE ALMA MATER by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN MATER DOLOROSA by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN SENEX'S SOLILOQUY ON HIS YOUTHFUL IDOL by THOMAS CAMPBELL |