The faces viewed along a teeming street -- The leer of lecherous greed, the dagger eyes, The red-veined cheeks, the frosty-cool surmise, The insolence, edged and barbed with old conceit, The carmine lips of girls, the gnarled defeat Shrunken on lineaments, too starkly wise, Of a gaunt beggar; the crass compromise Bloated on jowls self-labelled "Fraud!" and "Cheat!" The pale and toil-wracked brow, the chalky skin Of children, and the drunkard's crimson stare, -- All these commingle, till one groans aloud As in some nightmare-harrowed cave of sin, Beholding, on each wheel-pressed thoroughfare, Scampering shades in a hell-driven crowd! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FALSE POETS AND TRUE; TO WORDSWORTH by THOMAS HOOD GOD'S GRANDEUR by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS STABAT MATER DOLOROSA by JACOPONE DA TODI SONNET TO A FRIEND, ON HIS SECOND MARRIAGE by BERNARD BARTON TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE by PAKENHAM THOMAS BEATTY |