The Deadly Nightshade

There was a haunt, it does not change,Not while the fiend its path invades;But he who did its alleys rangeHas willed his penance to its shades.There still the nightshade breathes its pestOn fallen spirits not at rest.

It is the haunt it was of yore,A den where thieves and harlots creep,Where Nature’s voice is heard no more,Where guilt-stained men night-vigil keep,And crimes like months afresh appear,—Ere one runs out, another near.

A haunt where all in common shareThe sleepless hour, the murderous toil;Where Death on all has set his stare,To drag them forth, to grasp their spoil:Between their gallows and their den,A hardening sight for other men.

This is the charnel that doth hideA frantic woman who at playHas lost her wealth of virgin pride,And reckless games her soul away;Whose scarlet rags, deep-dyed, replaceThe blushes of her maiden face.

A mother’s bitter hour sets in;Wrecked on her breast the infant lies,As if to perish for its sin,There set adrift from human tiesTill its ear-piercing scream prevailAnd sullen pity hush the wail.

Where only shadows rise and set,And love at morn awaketh not,This child of woe his being met,To share a loveless parent’s lot,And at his birth his sentence meetBefore a mother’s judgment-seat.

The mother moaning in the gloomLaughed when a peaceful breath he drew,Too conscious of his early doom.On wounded wings the tidings flew,On bosoms pitiless they fell:‘A child of heaven was born in hell!’

His place of birth the skies deplored,No trees, no brooks, no meadows seen;And still his heart those skies adoredBefore he saw the fields were green.Born amid broils, in squalor bred,His soul knew not to where it sped.

The child is taught through many a blowTo shed with sobs the beggar’s tear,Reared as a prodigy of woeThat gentle women pay to hear.And many listened and bestowed;For younger tears had never flowed.

Held at his mother’s hand, he hungA broken spray with misery’s drip;And often to the ground he clung,His passion bursting at his lip.And still she dragged him o’er the stones,Though tender was he to the bones.

Her eyes of prey like fangs were laidOn all who gave a hurried look.And while she whined for kindly aid,She hid away the coin she took,When suddenly she begged no moreAnd rushed within a slamming door.

With nostrils spread, and eyes aflame,Before the shrine of death she stands,The infant by her, sick and lame,The lava trembling in her hands.She drinks it with a vengeful frown;She feels the fiend of sorrow drown.

Now in a prison left to rage,She thirsts, she burns with vain desireHer deadly sickness to assuage,To quench its fiery pang in fire.With what a mother sent to dwell,This child of heaven reared up in hell!

Not far away from infancy—Through weary time a single stage,The livelong years had hustled byBut left him still of tender age,When from his mother’s reach he fled,Outside the doors to make his bed.

Where odours wander, dank and foul,Through crowded streets and alleys lone,By day and night his footsteps prowl;His wants, not many, asked by none:The roads were new he hourly crossed,Yet was his way not wholly lost.

When hunger like a conscience cries,He asks the needy to bestow,Afraid to raise his drooping eyesExcept to those who famine know;Such he believes their crust will break,And share with him for pity’s sake.

Hopeful, he glides into a denUp whose dusk path a shudder flew,And asks of sick, half-famished menWhose strength no plenty could renew.Yet with what startling oaths they raveAnd bid him run his neck to save!

Still to the poor is his appeal,And they his mild entreaty spurn:Some whisper, Be a man and steal;Some bid him to the gallows turn.Child-like he credits all he hears,And rests his troubled heart in tears.

He rests,—but oft starts up in fear;His mother’s driving shadow breaksUpon his slumber unaware,And sleep’s too light repast awakesWhere dreams the festive board have spreadAnd turned his sorrow into bread.

Hope, ’mid those shapes of famine sent,Smiles on him;—she is Childhood’s bride!The mother’s image, o’er him bent,Cannot the angel wholly hide,—Not when her halo o’er him plays,And all but hunger’s pang allays.

How did he long for once to tasteOf the forbidden food whose smellFrom cellar gratings ran to waste!Gusts that the passing crowd repel.As when a rose some maid regales,The grateful vapour he inhales.

Less favoured than the dog outside,He lingers by some savoury mass;He watches mouths that open wide,And sees them eating through the glass.Oft his own lips he opes and shuts,And sympathy his fancy gluts.

So, oft a-hungered has he stood,And yarn of fasting fancy spun,As wistfully he watched the food,With one foot out prepared to run,In vague misgiving of his rightTo revel in the dainty sight.

Harmless, yet to the base akin,He feels a blot no eye could see,And drags his rags about his skinTo hide from view his pedigree.He deems himself a thief by birth,An alien on the teeming earth.

He begs not, but as in a tranceAdmires the gay and wealthy throng;But if the curious on him glance,He is abashed and slinks along;He cares no more, the spell once broke,Scenes of false plenty to invoke.

The man of charity beholdsHis vagrant looks with pent-up grief;He stops, reproves; he gently scolds,But fails to give the child relief;‘So sad,’ he says, ‘to see them thriveWho on another’s earnings live.’

Then comes the child, this ill-sown seed,To sweep the purlieus and the wynds,But few bethink them of his need,And scanty is the help he finds.At times he walks upon his head:A form of prayer for daily bread.

Now seem his days for sorrow made!He hears that men on Sunday pray;A world’s proud secret on paradeTo him appears the Sabbath-day.All have asked heaven to take their cares,But hunger says for him his prayers.

Some words have reached him such as jarOn sinners’ ears and seem devout;They are but as a light from far,They come from heaven and soon die out,Too weak as yet to turn a spellWove in the alphabet of hell.