The dark days now begin, when in afternoon The Great Night Lantern makes a razor-edge Of black and white in the streets. And one comes, called the Lamplighter, And the straight stiff lamps of these stiff London streets, At his quick touch burst into light. At this shy hour I see from my unshaded window Bright girls, hair flowing, go by with shuttered faces, Holding close captive their warm insurgent bosoms. And then, at the corner, Some slender lad of bold and upright carriage Greets them, and the shuttered lanterns of their faces Burst with light at the touch of the lamplighter. Oh, kind ingenious lamplighter, Will you please step this way? In Reply to an Invitation Don't think of me as one of no courtesy O elegant and refined foreign one, If I do not accept your high-minded invitation To drink rice-spirit with you At the little place called The Blue Lantern, near Pennyfields. Please don't regard me as lacking in gracious behaviour, Or as insufferably ignorant of the teachings of the Book of Rites But I am sojourning here in a strange land, And am not fully informed of the usages of your dignified people. As the wise Mencius observed in one of his inspired hours, Doubtless thinking forward to situation of this person: Child who has once suffered unpleasant sensation of burning, Ever afterward reluctant to approach stove. Wherefore, as this person once accepted an invitation, In words as affable and polished as yours, Mister, To drink rice-spirit at The Blue Lantern, And was there subjected to a custom of this country Of an entirely disturbing and unpleasing nature, Known as Ceremony of Confidence, He has, since that day, viewed The Blue Lantern With a feeling of most decided repugnance. A Night-Piece I climbed the other day up to the roof Of the commanding and palatial Home for Asiatics And looked across the city at the hour of no-light. Across great space of dark I looked, But the skirt of darkness had a hundred rents, Made by the lights of many people's homes. My life is a great skirt of darkness, But human kindliness has torn it through, So that it shows ten thousand gaping rents Where the light comes in. A Smile Given In Passing As I walked the street in the purring evening A little maid with yellow curls Tossed me a smile; and suddenly Pennyfields Grew from darkness to light, and the light of the stars Grew pale. I may not see her again, but I hold her smile in my heart, And she is with me in my shop and about the streets. My shop may tumble down; West India Dock may some time suffer a drought; Grief and Joy come for a day; And Hope and Fear, and Desire and Deed Arise and pass, and are no more; But the beauty born of her quickened smile Can never die. Of a National Cash Register