A LYRIC FOR LOWESTOFT. [Mr. HENRY IRVING is studying for his new piece at Lowestoft.] [Illustration] Henry Irving, will the Master feel the fierce and bracing breeze, As you wander by the margin of the restless Eastern seas? Save the seagull slowly swirling none shall hear the tale of woe, Learn how dark the life that ended in the fatal "Kelpie's Flow." 'Mid the murmur of the ocean you will tell how _Edgar_ felt When his _Lucy_ broke her troth-plight, and he flung down _Craigengelt_, Fitting place for actor's study, all that long and lonely shore; Yonder point methinks as Wolf's Crag should be known for evermore. Henceforth will the place be haunted when the midnight hour draws nigh: Men shall see the Master standing stern against the stormy sky. Faint, impalpable as shadow from the cloudland, _Lucy_ there Shall keep tryst; the moon's effulgence not more golden than her hair. And, in coming nights of Autumn, when the vast Lyceum rings With reverberating plaudits, and the town thy praises sings, Memories of the sands at Lowestoft shall be with you ere you sleep; In your ears once more shall echo diapason of the deep. * * * * * [Illustration: A DREAM OF UNFAIRLY-TREATED WOMEN. (_A Long Way After the Laureate._)] I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, A leader on weak women and their woe, In toil and industry, in art and trade, In this hard world below. And for awhile the thought of the sad part Played by them and of Fate's ill-balanced scales, Moistened mine eyelids, and made ache mine heart, Remembering these strange tales Of woman's miseries in every land, I saw wherever poverty draws breath Woman and anguish walking hand in hand, The dreary road to death. Those pallid sempstresses of HOOD'S great song Peopled the hollow dark, not now alone, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And grief's sad monotone, From hearts, like flints, beaten by tyrant hoofs; And I saw crowds in sombre sweating-dens, With reeking walls and dank and dripping roofs-- Fit scarce for styes or pens. Death at home's sin-stained threshold; honour's fall Dislodging from her throne love's household pet, And wan-faced purity a tyrant's thrall, With wild eyes sorrow-wet. And unsexed women facing heated blasts And Tophet fumes, and fluttering tongues of fire; And virtue staked on most unholy casts, And honour sold for hire: Squadrons and troops of girls of brazen air, Tramping the tainted city to and fro, With feverish flauntings veiling chill despair And deeply-centred woe. So shape chased shape. I saw a neat-garbed nurse, Wan with excessive work; and, bowed with toil, A shop-girl sickly, of the primal curse Each looked the helpless spoil.