Part I

The town is dark. The night o'er it is spread,
In other climes to shine the moon has fled,
And every star on high
Has closed his golden eye;
Black as the borrowed conscience is from wear
So black the aspect that the world does bear.
One tiny little light
Is glimmering on yon height;
And like a sick man's glaring eyes,
Or like a dying hope that flies,
That flickering light to flare up tries.

The midnight oil it is, in garret-room.
Who is it watches at that lamp's pale gloom?
Who can it be? You wish to know?
Two famous brothers they, — Virtue and Woe.
So great the misery, it has hardly space
To stir' in that lone, God-forsaken place.
Just like a swallow's nest, it is so small,
The very squalor of it doth apall.
The four walls are all gruesome and all bare,
That is to say, had not the moldy air
Adorned them all o'er with spot and stain.
And had from leaky roof the pouring rain
Not painted them with streaks, that would be true,
The rain here drew
Of darkest hue
A thick line, which
Looks like in rich
Men's homes the bell-rope near the door.
The air is foul, the walls outpour
A tainted, putrid breath.
It might cause e'en the death
Of rich men's pets, the dogs, if they

In kennels like this had to stay.

A table and a bed-stead of cheap stuff, —
Which for a rag-fair wouldn't be good enough, —
Upon the bed, a bag filled up with straw,
Two broken chairs you near the table saw,
Then a moth-eaten trunk; — and that was all
You that room's complete furnishing could call.

Who lives in here? The lamp's faint light
Copes with the darkness of the night.
Obscured, dim is the window-pane,
As are dream-pictures, one in vain
In memory tries to retain.

Deceives the lamp's faint light the eye?
Are those whom here we can espy
Made by the light so ghastly, van,
Or are they ghosts we look upon?
The answer is a moan and sigh.

Upon the trunk we first behold

A mother, whose thin arms enfold
Her babe. Poor, miserable child!
The mother's barren breasts beguiled!
Its craving hunger and it cries
And weakly whines, in vain it tries
Sweet milk to suck from hollow breast.
The mother's very looks attest
Her painful thoughts. As melting snow
Drops from the roof to street below:
As freely flows her burning tear
Upon her crying baby dear.
Or can it be that she is not
Thinking at all? Her tears flow, but
As if it were a thing of course,
As is tlie spring's flow from, its source?
Her older child, thank God 's asleep,
— I Or seems to be; well, it does not weep, —
Upon the bed, close to the wall,
Spread over him 's a ragged shawl.
The straw peeps out from 'neath the spread.
Sleep, little boy! Of golden thread
May angels weave a dream most sweet:
Dream that a slice of bread you eat!
A man, still young, the father he,
Sits at the table in deep gloom.
The cloud, we on his forehead see,
Is it that which gives to the room
This aspect of a living tomb?
That forehead seems an open page,
Telling of wars he had to wage
With' all the ills of cruel fate.
That forehead plainly shows the weight
Of care and woe which were his share.
Beneath that dark forehead, a pair
Of lustrous eyes brilliantly shine,
Like beauteous stars which illumine
The heavenly dome. Bold, fearless eyes,
Which strength and force do signalise.
It seemed as if his thought
Some mighty distance sought,
Had risen high,
Up to the sky
Where eagles fly.