Is there some great Iacchos of these slopes Suburban dismal? Have I profaned some female mystery, orgies Black and phantasmal? NEXT MORNING How have I wandered here to this vaulted room In the house of life?--the floor was ruffled with gold Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom, Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould, And damp old web of misery's heirloom Deadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold. And what is this that floats on the undermist Of the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feeling Unsightly its way to the warmth?--this thing with a list To the left? this ghost like a candle swealing? Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if it missed Itself among everything else, here hungrily stealing Upon me!--my own reflection!--explicit gist Of my presence there in the mirror that leans from the ceiling! Then will somebody square this shade with the being I know I was last night, when my soul rang clear as a bell And happy as rain in summer? Why should it be so? What is there gone against me, why am I in hell? PALIMPSEST OF TWILIGHT DARKNESS comes out of the earth And swallows dip into the pallor of the west; From the hay comes the clamour of children's mirth; Wanes the old palimpsest. The night-stock oozes scent, And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by: All that the worldly day has meant Wastes like a lie. The children have forsaken their play; A single star in a veil of light Glimmers: litter of day Is gone from sight. EMBANKMENT AT NIGHT, BEFORE THE WAR _Outcasts_. THE night rain, dripping unseen, Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands. The river, slipping between Lamps, is rayed with golden bands Half way down its heaving sides; Revealed where it hides. Under the bridge Great electric cars Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side. Far off, oh, midge after midge Drifts over the gulf that bars The night with silence, crossing the lamp-touched tide. At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridge Sleep in a row the outcasts, Packed in a line with their heads against the wall. Their feet, in a broken ridge Stretch out on the way, and a lout casts A look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall. Beasts that sleep will cover Their faces in their flank; so these Have huddled rags or limbs on the naked sleep. Save, as the tram-cars hover Past with the noise of a breeze And gleam as of sunshine crossing the low black heap, Two naked faces are seen Bare and asleep, Two pale clots swept and swept by the light of the cars. Foam-clots showing between The long, low tidal-heap, The mud-weed opening two pale, shadowless stars. Over the pallor of only two faces Passes the gallivant beam of the trams; Shows in only two sad places The white bare bone of our shams.