They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church In a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight, The noble ladies stood up in their pews, Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate, Some simply curious, some just insolent, And some in wondering scorn,—‘What next? what next?’ These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smile That misbecame them in a holy place, With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs; Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes And simultaneous shiver of moiré silk; While all the aisles, alive and black with heads, Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street, As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole With shuddering involutions, swaying slow From right to left, and then from left to right, In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest Of faces, rose upon you everywhere, From that crammed mass! you did not usually See faces like them in the open day: They hide in cellars, not to make you mad As Romney Leigh is.—Faces!—O my God, We call those, faces? men’s and women’s ... ay, And children’s;—babies, hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother’s neck,—poor mouths, Wiped clean of mother’s milk by mother’s blow, Before they are taught her cursing. Faces!... phew, We’ll call them vices festering to despairs, Or sorrows petrifying to vices: not A finger-touch of God left whole on them; All ruined, lost—the countenance worn out As the garments, the will dissolute as the acts, The passions loose and draggling in the dirt To trip the foot up at the first free step!— Those, faces! ’twas as if you had stirred up hell To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost In fiery swirls of slime,—such strangled fronts, Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly, To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood, And grind to devilish colours all your dreams Henceforth, ... though, haply, you should drop asleep By clink of silver waters, in a muse On Raffael’s mild Madonna of the Bird. I’ve waked and slept through many nights and days Since then,—but still that day will catch my breath Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed, In which the fibrous years have taken root So deeply, that they quiver to their tops Whene’er you stir the dust of such a day. My cousin met me with his eyes and hand, And then, with just a word, ... that ‘Marian Erle Was coming with her bridesmaids presently,’ Made haste to place me by the altar-stair, Where he and other noble gentlemen And high-born ladies, waited for the bride.