"I stand by a well-known house, a house of gambling and lust, Where in the bright-lit rooms, men flushed with the fever of play Win and lose. If they win, the she-devils rake it away. Win and lose. If they lose, they must out in the cold and die; Or if they be callous and tough, why, then become even as I. "Ah, me! for yon beautiful woman. Ah, me! for the passionless mart Ah, me! for the soft, warm flesh that covers the cold, hard heart. _He_ was lucky to-night at play; look at her wanton grace: The kisses, the toying hands, the flushed and amorous face, The moist lips lying of love!--she will lead him up to the gate Of Ruin and Death and Hell, and leave him there to his fate. With a low and musical laugh, as of silver as hard and as cold, At his folly to think _she_ could love--she has treated so many of old. "For is it not true that every gem your round white limbs do bear, And every star that shines in the night of your ebon hair, Was bought with a good man's soul? Each is a trophy sweet Of a noble life that was trampled under your delicate feet. The wine of your mouth is poison unto the fool that sips; Your fair white bosom is bruised, but not with a baby's lips, Child never drew life from those breasts, no gentle mother thou art, No, nor woman! warm blood of a woman ne'er fed such a pitiless heart. "And now from the steps of the house I see her descending again, Again after years, and there gnaws at my heart a twinge of an ancient pain: See!--still she is fair! nay, yet fairer! I gaze, as she pauses awhile To draw a delicate glove on a hand that has toyed with mine. Lo, from the perfect lip there dies the last shade of a smile, A smile for the fool she has left, drunk with gaming and wine. Alas! for that lip and that hand, and those heavy-fringed, amorous eyes. Oh, the days of passion that were--the days I believed in thy sighs-- The days when I loved thee so--as now, I hate and despise. And, lo! I seek in vain to trace on thy mouth, in thine eyes, A _little_ remorse, a _little_ of woman. Thou knowest well to hide All feeling; but when awake, and thy lover sleeps by thy side, Does a serpent gnaw at thy bosom, a shade chill thy heart? Is thy brow, When thou sittest alone, as unruffled, as coldly tranquil as now? ... Fool to ask! Heart she has not. Had she ever so little a one, 'Twould have seared and wrinkled her beauty with thought of the ill she has done.