Mature men chiefly, few in age or youth, A woman rarely, now and then a child: A child! If here the heart turns sick with ruth To see a little one from birth defiled, 60 Or lame or blind, as preordained to languish Through youthless life, think how it bleeds with anguish To meet one erring in that homeless wild. They often murmur to themselves, they speak To one another seldom, for their woe 65 Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour, Unless there waits some victim of like glamour, To rave in turn, who lends attentive show. 70 The City is of Night, but not of Sleep; There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain; The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, 75 Or which some moments' stupor but increases, This, worse than woe, makes wretches there insane. They leave all hope behind who enter there: One certitude while sane they cannot leave, One anodyne for torture and despair; 80 The certitude of Death, which no reprieve Can put off long; and which, divinely tender, But waits the outstretched hand to promptly render That draught whose slumber nothing can bereave (1) (1) Though the Garden of thy Life be wholly waste, the sweet flowers withered, the fruit-trees barren, over its wall hang ever the rich dark clusters of the Vine of Death, within easy reach of thy hand, which may pluck of them when it will. II Because he seemed to walk with an intent I followed him; who, shadowlike and frail, Unswervingly though slowly onward went, Regardless, wrapt in thought as in a veil: Thus step for step with lonely sounding feet 5 We travelled many a long dim silent street. At length he paused: a black mass in the gloom, A tower that merged into the heavy sky; Around, the huddled stones of grave and tomb: Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty: 10 He murmured to himself with dull despair, Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air. Then turning to the right went on once more And travelled weary roads without suspense; And reached at last a low wall's open door, 15 Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense: He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair, Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair. Then turning to the right resumed his march, And travelled street and lanes with wondrous strength, 20 Until on stooping through a narrow arch We stood before a squalid house at length: He gazed, and whispered with a cold despair, Here Hope died, starved out in its utmost lair.