Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3648, 4 September 1880, Page 1

Select Poetry.

DRUNK IN THE STREET.

" Drunk, your worship," the officer said ; "Drunk in the street. Sir! "the i raised her head. : ' ' ':'"'"'"'"~ . " "'■'; ":

A lingering trnce of the oldon grace Still softened (he lines of hitr woe-worn face, Unkrmpt and tangled her rich brown hair; Yet with all the furrowa »nd stains of oaro— The years of anguish, and sin, and despair— The child of the city was passing fair.

Ihe ripe, red mouth, with lips compressed— The rise and;fall;of the heaving breast— The nervous fingers, so taper and small, Crumpled the fringe ef tbe tattered shawl, As she stands in her place at the officer's call. She seemed good and fair, she seemed tender and sweet This fallen woman found drunk in the street.

Does the hard tjjftt once smoothed the ripple

and wave' '*'■' . . Of that tangled hair lie .still in the grave ? Is the mother who pressed those red lips to her own Dead to tho pain of their smothered moan ? Has the voice that chimed with the lisping

H prayer No account of hope for the lost one there, Bearing her burden of Bhame and despair?

Drunk in the street!—in the gutters found—. From a pa«sionate longing to crush and drown \ The soul of the woman she might have been— To fling off the weight of a fearful dream, And awake again in the homestead hard by The wooded mountain that touched the sky: To linger awhile on the path to school And catch in the depths of the limpid pool, Under the willow shade, green and cool, A dimpled face and a laughing eye, And the pleasant words of the paeeer-by.

Ye men with fitters and mothers and wires; Have ye no care for these women's lives t

Must they starve for the comfort ye never speak P Must they erer be erring, and sinful, and weak— Staggering onward with weary feet, Stained in the gutters, and drunk in the 'street? " \ '*':.'■• ■\ ''