The modern Babylon
Sleeps like a serpent coil'd up at my feet.
London--huge model of the great round earth,
The teeming birthplace and the mausoleum
Of millions; where dark graves and drawing-rooms
Gaze from each other into each; where flow'rs
Of blushing life droop in the grasp of Vice
Like blossoms in the fingers of a corpse;
Where cank'rous gold sways, millions with a nod
To abject slavery, buying men up
As toys for knaves to play with in the game
Of life; where Truth is kicked from foot to foot,
Till in bewilderment she cries aloud
And swears to save her life she is a lie;
Where Love and Hate, in masquerading guise,
Pell-mell dance on; chameleon Charity,
In all its varying phases, crawls along--
Now shrinking up dark courts in russet tint,
And then, in bold and gaudy colours dresst
Which publish trumpet-tongued its whereabouts,
It takes a garish stand before the world
And calls itself an angel. Thus for aye--
For ever, rolls the dark and turbid stream
In feverish unrest.