Page:Barham Beach - a poem of regeneration.djvu/47

Less harmful doth it seem to all, less must the soul degrade
To filch an orange just to soothe a baby s fever-fret
Than to break faith with thousands, to betray a city s trust,
To scorn the ditcher’s sweated hoard and scatter it like dust,
To turn the helpless old from home, to make the dying weep,
To strip the children, sending them to cold and hungry sleep,
To squander on one Eoman night the gold a youth had saved
To tide him o er the gleaning years of thought his spirit craved,
And a maiden s shield gainst poverty insanely down to beat,
Careless that she for refuge must seek either stream or street.
The little silver fortresses these trusting souls had built,
And given to the keeping of a seeming honest hand,
Had crumbled, tottered to their fall upon the shifting silt,
Founded, alas! not on a rock, but in the treacherous sand.
Thief - liar - robber - cheat ! The wife felt all her senses swim
E en as the words, familiar grown, did shape themselves once more;
There surged within the syllables a horror vast and grim
Which the gorge rose at, while the eyes with salt sick tears brimmed o’er.