THE LITTLE HALF-SOVEREIGN 5
TO MRS O NC...
T.
Written during the first session of the Licensing
Committee of the London County Council,
I WILL not bring abuse to point my pen,
Nor a sarcastic tongue.
Think only what you might be, before men,
If you were young.
What fierce temptations might not lovers
bring
In London’s wicked city?
Perhaps you might yourself have one wee
fling,
If you were pretty.
What might not hard starvation drive you to,
With Death so near and sure?
Perhaps it might drive even virtuous you,
If you were poor.
But is it just, or grateful to the One
That keeps even you from wrong,
Or even humble to shriek, ‘‘ Get you gone, -
For I am strong” ?
Temptation has not touched you, Mrs.C.
Forsooth, I do not lie there,
For you are only not the thing you aren’t
Through being neither.
And since some fall in Life’s tremendous
storm,
And you are on your feet,
Were it not better with a bosom warm
And accents sweet )
To help to raise (and no man will upbraid
you)
Your sisters fallen far?
’Tis vain! God’s worst omission—Heart—
has made you
The thing you are !
THE LITTLE HALF-SOVEREIGN.!
RED is the angry sunset,
Murk is the even grey,
Ileavy the clouds that hover
Over our Hell to-day.
“¢* Say, in our dark Gomorrah,
Lord, can an angel find
Fifty, but fifty, righteous—
Body—I say not Mind.”
Sadly the angel turneth—
‘* Stay, ere thou fleest, stay ;
Canst thou not find me twenty?”
‘‘ Nay” is the answer, ‘‘ nay.”
‘* Are there not ten, bright spirit,
Hidden, nor quickly seen,
Somewhere in Hell’s dark alleys,
Somewhere in Walham Green?
‘‘ Speak, for I see thy forehead
Sadden in dark denial,
Is there not one that standeth
Tempter and longsome trial?
‘*Is not a candle burning
Somewhere amid the flame
Scorching the smoke of London
With its eternal shame?
‘* Ts there no gate so stubborn
That shall not find a key,
That with our Sovereign’s image
Graven in majesty
?”’
1 The occasion of this poem was the meeting
of the author with a fair and virtuous damsel
of pleasant address and conversation. She
politely asked him to call at her residence on
the following Sunday: but, on his doing so,
she straightway demanded half-a-sovereign,
and proffered a shameful equivalent. The
indignant boy went off and gave vent to his
feelingsin the above rhymes,