4 A. M.

Leaving the dun river with hurried tapping feet

And up the long uncomfortable street

With eyes uninterested yet forced to see and read

The dingy notices once sharp and bright with greed,

Now drear with want, that swear the Queen's Hotel

And Brown's Hotel and King's are doing well —

A soldier and a beggar mock me as I go,

The light steals after me, emerging slow

And pale from the dim alleys shadow-crouched.

I hurried by the drunkard as he slouched

From lamp-post unto lamp-post.... Then I saw

Caught in the mirror of a tailor's door

My own reflection as I hurried past,

My flaring colours and my face aghast —

The scarlet tassel of my hat that hung

Limp as a spent flame, and my skirt that clung

About my knees and fluttered at the back:

An injured moth, with sulphur stripes and black,

My bag flamboyant as a pillar-box;

My frayed gilt fringe of hair and tarnished locks.

Jagged and crude and swift I seemed to pass

Painted too brightly on that temperate glass.

... An omnibus from sudden corner reels:

Silence lies mangled underneath the wheels.