Collected Works (Vol. II)

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,