Jefferson Butler Fletcher

SHUFFLING and shambling, woebegone, they pass,

Seven in single file, and seven as one,—

As if a spectrum of all woe the sun

Here cast through some bewitched prismatic glass.

From their stooped shoulders, back and fore, hang crass

High-coloured chromos of a stage mignonne

In tights, astride a grinning simpleton

Squat on all fours, and long-eared like an ass.

“Success! Success!” we read—yea, thy success

We read, O wanton among cities: vice

Saddled on folly, woe beneath sevenfold:

Woe of the lust of life, and the shameful price

Of life,—woe of the want, the weariness,—

Of fear, of hate,—of the thrice false weights of gold!