All night waiting in an empty house
Under the roof that rusted, by the
mud-chinked walls, a yawning fire-place,
a man of nervous temperament waiting
the broken pauper rehearsing
to be or not to be.
He said
–There was a prostitute under the lamp,
the baby beggar in the gutter, but
we are poor creatures,
All of us……..
The sweater’s victim
“Sewing at once, with a double thread,
a shroud as well as a shirt,”
dreadful ghastly facts.
A little child, staggering with exhaustion
numb with agony, knowing
no hope but the grave.
But I have seen the mother
weary and weeping, smitten with the
mortal hunger of her babes;
making her choice between the brothel
and the lake....