London, from Far

Afar from all this country peace it lies.
Tremendous and inscrutable for gloom, —
The dreadful, fateful City of my doom
I know its lurid, fog-invested skies;
I know what pestilential odors rise
From court and alley, each a living tomb;
I know the tainted flowers, by night that bloom
Along its wayside, — flowers men spurn and prize.

I know the strife and the unceasing din, —
The utmost blackness of its heart I know;
I hear their shrieks and groans who toil within.
And cries of those it murdered long ago, —
Yet 'mid the twisted growths of Shame and Sin,
One woodland flower of memory shall grow.