"Though cold the coxcomb, and though coarse the boor,

Though dulness haunts the rich and pain the poor,

In this colossal city,

Yet London is not Rome, O Shade!" I said.

"A later Juvenal should not find her dead

To purity and pity."

"Satire, of shames and follies in sole quest,

Is a one-eyed divinity at best,"

My guide responded, slowly.

"The tale of ZoÏlus hath its moral still.

Such critics are but blowflies, their small skill

To carrion given wholly.

"Not all the Romans of Domitian's days

Were such as live in Juvenal's savage lays;

Not all the Latian ladies

Were Hippias or Collatias. Neither here

May all be gauged by satire's rule severe,

Or earth would be a Hades.

"The scalpel hath no terrors for the sound,

Nor is the hand that wields it harshly bound

To ceaseless vivisection.

The Cynic sharply sees, but sees not far;

The eye that hunts the mote may miss the star

Too great for scorn's detection.

"Dream not, oh friend, because I let the light

On lurid London through the cloak of night

(As was my undertaking.)

That I've a spirit wholly given to scorn,

Or blind to all, save sin, that with the morn

Will see a bright awaking.

"Yet could the freedman's son but wield his flail

In London, there are those might shrink and pale

As did Domitian's minion.

Paris lives yet, pander and parasite

Still flaunt in bold impunity, despite

A custom-freed opinion.

"Dull in the drawing-room, our beardless boys

Can sparkle in the haunts of coarser joys,

Coldness and muteness vanish

When Tullia dances or when Pollio sings.

With riotous applause the precinct rings,

There chill restraint they banish.

"Behold Lord Limpet in his gilded Box,

His well-gloved palms and scarlet silken socks

Actively agitated;

He who erewhile about the ball-room stood

A solemn, weary, whispering thing of wood,

And sneered, and yawned, and waited."

"Wondrous!" I cried. "The youngster's cheeks flush red,

Wide laugh his lips, and swiftly wags his head,

He cheers, he claps, he chuckles.

Can he, the languid lounger limp and faint

Give way to mirth with the mad unrestraint

Of boys with ribs and knuckles?

"Frankly canaille is that dancing chit

Slang and suggestiveness serve her for wit,

And impudence for beauty.

Yet frigid 'Form' melts at her cockney spell,

'Form,' which votes valsing with the reigning belle

An undelightful duty.

"Bounds on the arch-buffoon, with flexile face,

With bagman smartness and batrachian grace.

Is he not sweet and winning?

Mime of the gutter, mimic of the slum,

Muse of the haunts unspeakable, else dumb,

A satyr gross and grinning?

"Limpet smiled," he said. "Shakspeare's boldest wit

Leaves Limpet listless, but each feature lit

At that last comic chorus.

London is full of Limpets; clownings please

The well-groom'd mob, though Aristophanes

Would miserably bore us.

"Untile the Town entirely? Nay, good friend,

That were to affright the timid, and offend

The tender and the trustful.

Unlifted yet must lie the dusky screen

That veils the viler features of the scene,

The dread and the disgustful."

"Shadow!" I said, "Civilisation fails,

While surfeits Idleness, and Labour pales.

For all its spread and glitter,

The Titan City lacks its crowning grace

And glory, whilst its pleasure is so base,

Its bondage is so bitter."

"True!" sighed the Shadow, and a softened smile

Seemed to illume the coldness, void of guile,

Of those phantasmal features.

"When from the City's gloom shall flash to light

This truth: The sleek and selfish sybarite

Is meanest of God's creatures?"

"Shadow!" I cried. But in the darkness dim

Those lineaments did waver and dislimn

Like clouds at the sun's waking.

Alone I stood; fled was the night, the dream,

And o'er the sleeping City's sullen stream

Babylon's grey dawn was breaking.