THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE

I

There was a haunt, it does not change,

Not while the fiend its path invades;

But he who did its alleys range

Has willed his penance to its shades.

There still the nightshade breathes its pest

On fallen spirits not at rest.

II

It is the haunt it was of yore,

A den where thieves and harlots creep,

Where Nature’s voice is heard no more,

Where guilt-stained men night-vigil keep,

And crimes like months afresh appear,—

Ere one runs out, another near.

48III

A haunt where all in common share

The sleepless hour, the murderous toil;

Where Death on all has set his stare,

To drag them forth, to grasp their spoil:

Between their gallows and their den,

A hardening sight for other men.

IV

This is the charnel that doth hide

A frantic woman who at play

Has lost her wealth of virgin pride,

And reckless games her soul away;

Whose scarlet rags, deep-dyed, replace

The blushes of her maiden face.

V

A mother’s bitter hour sets in;

Wrecked on her breast the infant lies,

As if to perish for its sin,

There set adrift from human ties

Till its ear-piercing scream prevail

And sullen pity hush the wail.

49VI

Where only shadows rise and set,

And love at morn awaketh not,

This child of woe his being met,

To share a loveless parent’s lot,

And at his birth his sentence meet

Before a mother’s judgment-seat.

VII

The mother moaning in the gloom

Laughed when a peaceful breath he drew,

Too conscious of his early doom.

On wounded wings the tidings flew,

On bosoms pitiless they fell:

‘A child of heaven was born in hell!’

VIII

His place of birth the skies deplored,

No trees, no brooks, no meadows seen;

And still his heart those skies adored

Before he saw the fields were green.

Born amid broils, in squalor bred,

His soul knew not to where it sped.

50IX

The child is taught through many a blow

To shed with sobs the beggar’s tear,

Reared as a prodigy of woe

That gentle women pay to hear.

And many listened and bestowed;

For younger tears had never flowed.

X

Held at his mother’s hand, he hung

A broken spray with misery’s drip;

And often to the ground he clung,

His passion bursting at his lip.

And still she dragged him o’er the stones,

Though tender was he to the bones.

XI

Her eyes of prey like fangs were laid

On all who gave a hurried look.

And while she whined for kindly aid,

She hid away the coin she took,

When suddenly she begged no more

And rushed within a slamming door.

51XII

With nostrils spread, and eyes aflame,

Before the shrine of death she stands,

The infant by her, sick and lame,

The lava trembling in her hands.

She drinks it with a vengeful frown;

She feels the fiend of sorrow drown.

XIII

Now in a prison left to rage,

She thirsts, she burns with vain desire

Her deadly sickness to assuage,

To quench its fiery pang in fire.

With what a mother sent to dwell,

This child of heaven reared up in hell!

XIV

Not far away from infancy—

Through weary time a single stage,

The livelong years had hustled by

But left him still of tender age,

When from his mother’s reach he fled,

Outside the doors to make his bed.

52XV

Where odours wander, dank and foul,

Through crowded streets and alleys lone,

By day and night his footsteps prowl;

His wants, not many, asked by none:

The roads were new he hourly crossed,

Yet was his way not wholly lost.

XVI

When hunger like a conscience cries,

He asks the needy to bestow,

Afraid to raise his drooping eyes

Except to those who famine know;

Such he believes their crust will break,

And share with him for pity’s sake.

XVII

Hopeful, he glides into a den

Up whose dusk path a shudder flew,

And asks of sick, half-famished men

Whose strength no plenty could renew.

Yet with what startling oaths they rave

And bid him run his neck to save!

53XVIII

Still to the poor is his appeal,

And they his mild entreaty spurn:

Some whisper, Be a man and steal;

Some bid him to the gallows turn.

Child-like he credits all he hears,

And rests his troubled heart in tears.

XIX

He rests,—but oft starts up in fear;

His mother’s driving shadow breaks

Upon his slumber unaware,

And sleep’s too light repast awakes

Where dreams the festive board have spread

And turned his sorrow into bread.

XX

Hope, ’mid those shapes of famine sent,

Smiles on him;—she is Childhood’s bride!

The mother’s image, o’er him bent,

Cannot the angel wholly hide,—

Not when her halo o’er him plays,

And all but hunger’s pang allays.

54XXI

How did he long for once to taste

Of the forbidden food whose smell

From cellar gratings ran to waste!

Gusts that the passing crowd repel.

As when a rose some maid regales,

The grateful vapour he inhales.

XXII

Less favoured than the dog outside,

He lingers by some savoury mass;

He watches mouths that open wide,

And sees them eating through the glass.

Oft his own lips he opes and shuts,

And sympathy his fancy gluts.

XXIII

So, oft a-hungered has he stood,

And yarn of fasting fancy spun,

As wistfully he watched the food,

With one foot out prepared to run,

In vague misgiving of his right

To revel in the dainty sight.

55XXIV

Harmless, yet to the base akin,

He feels a blot no eye could see,

And drags his rags about his skin

To hide from view his pedigree.

He deems himself a thief by birth,

An alien on the teeming earth.

XXV

He begs not, but as in a trance

Admires the gay and wealthy throng;

But if the curious on him glance,

He is abashed and slinks along;

He cares no more, the spell once broke,

Scenes of false plenty to invoke.

XXVI

The man of charity beholds

His vagrant looks with pent-up grief;

He stops, reproves; he gently scolds,

But fails to give the child relief;

‘So sad,’ he says, ‘to see them thrive

Who on another’s earnings live.’

56XXVII

Then comes the child, this ill-sown seed,

To sweep the purlieus and the wynds,

But few bethink them of his need,

And scanty is the help he finds.

At times he walks upon his head:

A form of prayer for daily bread.

XXVIII

Now seem his days for sorrow made!

He hears that men on Sunday pray;

A world’s proud secret on parade

To him appears the Sabbath-day.

All have asked heaven to take their cares,

But hunger says for him his prayers.

XXIX

Some words have reached him such as jar

On sinners’ ears and seem devout;

They are but as a light from far,

They come from heaven and soon die out,

Too weak as yet to turn a spell

Wove in the alphabet of hell.

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