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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SONG OF THE LOST, by PATRICK MACGILL Poet's Biography
First Line: What will be left when the siren city
Last Line: "the nightly wail of a sleepless woe?"
Subject(s): Poverty; Sin
First Line: What will be left when the siren city
Last Line: "the nightly wail of a sleepless woe?"
Subject(s): Poverty; Sin
WHAT will be left when the siren city
Ceases to lure and ceases to pay,
When poverty hovers across my way,
When years have sullied my sinful grace?
No mother's love, and no father's pity,
No fondling lover, no children gay,
To plant a kiss on their mother's face.
The kisses I've had were born of passion,
And the love was the lust of brutal men
Wild from the bar or gambling den,
My jewels were bought in a soul's eclipse,
For I was gay in an evil fashion —
Queen of the sodden alley, when
They paid for kissing my painted lips.
Look how the lamps of London twinkle,
Hark how the bells of London toll,
"Pledge thyself for the devil's dole,
Fool of the empty tinsel show —
But what avails when the brow shall wrinkle,
The lone regrets of a stricken soul,
The nightly wail of a sleepless woe?"
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