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?" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTELLECT by RALPH WALDO EMERSON SONNET: 110 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE by LAVINIA STONE STODDARD WIND IN THE WILLOWS by VERNE TAYLOR BENEDICT NATALIA'S RESURRECTION: 5 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTOWN by HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL |