22(5 OSWALDKIRK. 



And hates their coming. They, (what can they less?) 



Make just reprisals ; and with cringe and shrug 



And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. 



All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace, 



Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies 



And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, 



To her, who, frugal only that her thrift 



May feed excesses she can ill afford, 



Is hackneyed home unlackeyen ; who in haste 



Alighting, turns the key in her own door, 



And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, 

 Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. 



Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives. 



On fortune's velvet altar offering up 



Their last poor pittance. 



So fare we in this prison house the world. 



And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see 



So many maniacs dancing in their chains. 



They gaze upon the links that hold them fast. 



With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, 



Then shake them in despair, and dance again! 



Nature, enchanting nature, in whose form 



And lineaments divine I trace a hand 



That errs not, and find raptures still renewed, 



Loses her influence. Cities then 



Attract us, and neglected nature pines 



Abandoned, as unworthy of our love. 



But are not wholesome airs 



And groves whose very silence charms, 



To be preferr'd to smoke, to the eclipse, 



That metropolitan volcanoes make, 



Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long ; 

 And to the stir of commerce, driving slow, 



