By just so much as their lean wolfishness
Contrived more intense meaning to express
Than hunger-heated eye or snarling jaw
Of any real wolf.

                              Stricken with awe,
The woman, only very poor indeed,
Recoil'd before that creature past all need,
And past all help, too, being past all hope.
For stern and stark, against the stolid cope
Of the sad, rainy, and enormous night
That sexless face had fix'd itself upright
At once, and, as it were, mechanically,
With no surprise; as much as to imply
That it had done with this world everywhere,
And thenceforth look'd to Heaven; yet look'd not there
With any sort of hope, or thankfulness
For things expected, but in grim distress,
From the mere want of gazing constantly
On darkness.

                       London's life went roaring by,
And took no notice of this thing at all.
It seem'd a heap of mud against the wall.
And if it were a vagrant .... well? Why, there
The poor-house stands. The thing is its affair,
Not yours, nor mine; who pay the rates when due,
And trust in God, as all good Christians do.
And yet, if you or I had pass'd that way,
And noticed (which we did not so, I say,
Not ours the fault!) the creature crouching there,
I swear to you, O brother, and declare,
For my part, on my conscience, that, although
I never yet was so opprest, I know,
By instant awe of any king or queen,
Prelate or prince, whate'er the chance hath been,
As to have felt my heart's calm beating stopp'd,
Or my knees falter, yet I must have dropp'd
(Ay, and you too, friend, whom my heart knows well)
In presence of that unapproachable,
Appalling majesty of misery;
Lifting its pale-faced protest to the sky
Silently against you, and me, no doubt,
And all the others of this social rout,
That calls itself fine names in modern books.

IV.

The woman, stone cold 'neath the stony looks
Of this rag-robed Medusa, shrank away
Abasht; not daring, at the first, to say
Such words as, meant for comfort, might have been
Too much like insult to that grim-faced queen
Or king, whiche'er it was, of wretchedness.
Her own much misery seem'd so much less
Than this, flung down before her, by God sent,
It may have been, for her admonishment.
But, at the last, she timidly drew near,
And whisper'd faintly in the creature's ear,
"Have you no home?"

                                    No look even made reply;
Much less a word. But on the stolid sky
The stolid face stared ever.

                                             "Are you cold?"
A sort of inward creepy movement roll'd
The rustled rags. And still the stolid face
Perused the stolid sky. Perhaps the case
Supposed was too self-evident to claim
More confirmation than what creeping came
To crumble those chill rags; subsiding soon,
As though to be unnoticed were a boon,
All kinds of notice having proved unkind.
Such creatures as men hunt are loth to find
The hole discover'd where they hide; and when
By chance you stir them out of it, they then
Make haste to feign to be already dead,
Hoping escape that way.

                                       The woman said,
More faintly, " Are you hungry?"

                                                          There, at once
Finding intensest utterance for the nonce,
With such a howl 'twould chill your blood to hear,
The wolf-jaws wail'd out, " Hungry? ha, look here!"
And, therewith, fingers of a skeleton claw,
Tearing asunder those foul rags, you saw
.... Was it a woman's breast? It might be so.
It look'd like nothing human that I know.
She whose faint question such shrill response woke,
Stood stupified, stunn'd, sick.

V.

                                               Just then there broke
Down the dim street (and any sound, just then,
Shaped from the natural utterance of men
To still that echoed howl, had brought relief
To her sick senses) a loud shout "Stop thief!
Stop thief!" ....

                    A man rush'd by those women—rush'd
So vehemently by them, that he brush'd
Their raggedness together; as he pass'd,
Dropp'd something on the pavement, and was fast
Wrapp'd in the rainy vapours of the night,
That, in a moment, smear'd him out of sight,
And, in a moment after, let emerge
The trampling crowd; which, all in haste to urge
Its honest chase, swept o'er those women twain,
Regardless, and rush'd on into the rain.
Leaving them both upon the slippery flags,
Bruised, trampled, rags in colloquy with rags,
And so—alone.

VI.

                           Meanwhile the wolfish face,
Resettled to its customary place,
Was staring as before into the sky,
Stolid. The other woman heavily
Gather'd herself together, bruised, in pain,
Half rose up, slipp'd on something, and again
Sank feebly back upon her hand.

                                                    But now,
What new emotion shakes her? Doth she know
What this is, that her fingers on the stone
Have felt, and, feeling, close so fiercely on?
This pocket-book? with gold enough within
To feed .... Ah, God! and must it be a sin
To keep it? Were it possible to pay
With what its very robber flings away
For bread . . . bread! . . . bread! . . . and still not starve, yet still
Be honest? . . . .
                         " Were one doing very ill,
If .... One should pray .... if one could pray, that's sure,
The strength would come. My God! we are so poor!
So poor .... 'tis terrible! To understand
Such things, one should be learn'd, and have at hand
Ever so many good religious books,
And texts, and things. And then one starves. It looks