(That is a sight that hurts;)
Women, furrowing filthy ooze
In thin, bedraggled skirts;
Horses, lashed with cruel zest,
Ploughing the fumid fog;
Hark! ... a car, with no arrest,
Killing a howling dog;--

Clanging trams, with haggard men
Forcing their way within,--
Some compressed in a steaming-pen,
Others soaked to the skin;
Smoke and soot in the murky sky,
Death in the tainted air,
Each aware, were he to die,
None in the crowd would care;--

Here and there a carriage fine,
Cleaving the reeking mass;
Scowling faces, ranged in line,
Watching the rich man pass;
Envy's gleam in many an eye,
Hate in many a threat;
Why should he be warm and dry,
And they be cold and wet?

Pictures these of the "Passing Show,"
Scenes in a world gone wrong,
Wretched weaklings, born to woe,
Crushed by the brutal strong!
Breaking hearts that crave release,
Slaves to a ceaseless strife! ...
I will go back to sylvan peace
And a sight of the Source of Life.

MY BORES

I take their hands with placid smile
And words which social rules enforce,
Though sadly conscious all the while
Of something very like remorse,
Because beneath the mask I wear
I really wish they were not there.

Their visits I at heart resent;
The half-read volume haunts my thought;
The urgent note remains unsent;
The verse, unfinished, comes to naught;
And all because, on some pretence,
They waste their time at my expense.

Yet no grim misanthrope am I,
Who fears, distrusts, and hates his race;
I merely wish them to pass by,
And seek some other lounging-place;
For, frankly, I should love them more
A little further from my door.

In vain I make no answering calls;
They blandly smile and come again!
Nay, even bring within my walls
More curious strangers in their train,
"Who wished so much your home to see!"
Why do they never think of me?

The few I want I can invite;
Hence why should others thus intrude?
How dare they give themselves the right,
Unasked, to spoil my solitude?
And why presume I care to know
More triflers in their world of show?

Their idle life, on pleasure bent,
Their mania for some silly game,
Their hours in stupid gossip spent,--
Would give me self-contempt and shame;
Between us is no common ground
On which a comradeship to found.

A word or two upon the street
Suffice me with the most of men;
Beyond a greeting, when we meet.
I care not if we speak again;
My books and Nature's charming face
Such human consorts well r