BUDS
We went (we both were boiling young) one night
To see six bouts on—never mind the street;
And passed, beneath a gas-lamp's ghastly light,
A woman of prey, no longer fair, her feet
Long turned towards death. My comrade knew she came
From Ardmore town, where still they buzzed her shame.
He hailed her by a childish name which nigh
Had been forgotten, surely never heard
Since days in quiet Ardmore long gone by,
Irrevocable: "Buds! why, Buds!"—the word
Of what was gone. She hid her face in pain,
With God knows what hell-ringing through her brain.
What arrows then of utter woe might stir
Her trampled soul, I have no skill to guess:
The white name fouled against the front of her—
The name of hope mocking her hopelessness!
However, being boiling young, that night
We phrased no moral—went and saw the fight.
[233]
