Insurrections

Around fhe sun As it has done 5 Since time begun, When I have dnyfed to flre dtuce And whaf S the use 0 f my abuse THE DANCER WILL not dance say I will not dance. our audience, pah, let them go home again, leek, ugly pigs. Am I to hop and prance As long as they will pay, And posture for their eyes, and lay l y womanhood before thein Let them drain heir porter pots and snuffle-Ill not stay. or he is dead tell you he is dead. ly God, did you not hear me say it wice already I held his groaning head In these remembering arms, And cursed the charms hat could not stop his going. Must I bay it , ike a dog to you Quit your alarms hey shout and stamp hen, let them shout and stamp, hose booted hogs and lechers-Im away o sit beside my dead. 0 God, you tramp Upon me too, and twine More sorrows round me than are mine irith holy unconcern. . . Dont bar my way, m going to my dead.. . Ah-h-h, stamping swine THE night droops down upon the street Shade after shade. A solemn frown Is pressing to A deeper hue The houses drab and brown, Till each in blackness touch and meet, Are mixed and melted down. All is so silent. Not a sound Comes through the dark. The gas-lamps show From here and there In feeble glare The pavement cracked below, And the greasy, muddy ground, And the houses in a row. Those rigid houses black and sour. Each dark, thin building stretching high. Rank after rank Of windows blank Stare from a sullen eye, With doleful aspect scowl and glower At the timid passer-by. And down between those spectre files, The narrow roadway, thick with mud, 8 Doth crouch and hide, While close beside The gutter churns a flood If noisome water through the piles 3f garbage thick as blood. lnd the tis silent, tho no sound Zrawls from the blackness thickly spread, Yet darkness brings Grim, noiseless things rhat walk as theywere dead. rhey glide, and peer, and steal around, With stealthy, silent tread. You dare not walk that awful crew Might speak or laugh as you pass by, Might touch and paw With a formless claw, Dr leer from a sodden eye, Might whisper awful things they knew, Or wring their hands and cry. See, in the doorway, squatting there Back in the blackness, rocking slow-That a babe can rest On the battered breast She urges to and fro, She croons no song, she prays no prayer, If any such she know. 9 She rocks and looks with a fixed eye Out from the black cave where she sits Silent as stone, Nor makes a moan To the silent hour that flits, Nor droops one dreary, heart-wrung sigh, But stares through hell-dark pits. Heaven send she has no thoughts to sear Through the drear stretches of the night, Sweetness of smiles, And childish wiles, A future beckoning bright, When the hands of a man held nought of fear And the lips on her lips were light. There is the doorway mean and low, And there are the houses drab and brown, And the nights black pall, And the hours that crawl, And the forms that peer and frown, And the lamps dim flare on the slush below, And the gutter grumbling down. NATURE NOT altogether cruel I, Who weave the sunbeams through the air, I paint the many-tinted sky And curl a babys hair... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.