Next she made the stage her market, and she dragged Art’s temple down To the level of a show place for the outcasts of the town. And the kisses she had given to poor Ostler Joe for nought With their gold and costly jewels rich and titled lovers bought. Went the years with flying footsteps while her star was at its height; Then the darkness came on swiftly, and the gloaming turned to night. Shattered strength and faded beauty tore the laurels from her brow; Of the thousands who had worshipped never one came near her now. Broken down in health and fortune, men forgot her very name, Till the news that she was dying woke the echoes of her fame; And the papers in their gossip mentioned how an “actress” lay Sick to death in humble lodgings, growing weaker every day. One there was who read the story in a far-off country place, And that night the dying woman woke and looked upon his face. Once again the strong arms clasped her that had clasped her long ago, And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast of Ostler Joe. All the past had he forgotten, all the sorrow and the shame; He had found her sick and lonely, and his wife he now could claim. Since the grand folks who had known her one and all had slunk away, He could clasp his long-lost darling, and no man would say him nay. In his arms death found her lying, in his arms her spirit fled; And his tears came down in torrents, as he knelt beside her dead. Never once his love had faltered through her base unhallowed life; And the stone above her ashes bears the honoured name of wife. * * * * * That’s the blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust; Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust; But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot. In 1886, Mrs. James Brown Potter recited this poem at a soirée given in the house of Mr. Secretary Whitney, in Washington, U.S.A., before a large company of ladies and gentlemen. During the recital some of the ladies rose and left the room; the New York papers spitefully remarked of those ladies who remained to hear the poem to the end, that, being in evening dress, they were observed to blush almost down to their waists. The poem was severely criticised in several of the prudish American papers, and assigned by some of them to the pen of A. C. Swinburne, although as unlike his style as anything could well be. The controversy that arose created a tremendous demand for the poem, and many thousands of copies were sold in a few days, from which however, the author derived no benefit whatever, owing to the disgraceful state of the international copyright, or want of copyright.