Classic Poem

... In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night,
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!
" Seduced"; a gentleman; a baby coming;
Parents that railed; London; the child born dead;
A seamstress then, one of some fifty girls
" Taken on " a few months at a dressmaker's
In the crush of the " season " at ten shillings a week!
The fashionable people's dresses done,
And they flown off, these fifty extra girls
Sent — to the streets: that is, to work that gives
Scarcely enough to buy the decent clothes
Respectable employers all demand
Or speak dismissal. Well, well, well, we know!
And she — " Why, I have gone on down and down ,
And there's the gutter, look, that I shall die in! "
" My dear, " I say, " where hope of all but that
Is gone, 'tis time, I think, life were gone too. "
She looks at me. " That I should kill myself? "
" That you should kill yourself " — " That would be sin ,
And God would punish me! " — " And will not God
Punish for this? " She pauses; then whispers:
" No, no, He will forgive me, for He knows! "
I laughed aloud: " And you , " she said, " and you ,
Who are so good, so noble " . . " Noble? Good? "
I laughed aloud, the great sob in my throat
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep
Of this vast flock that perishes alone
Out in the pitiless desert! — Yet she'd speak:
She'd ask me: she'd entreat: she'd demonstrate.
O I must not say that! I must believe!
Who made the sea, the leaves so green, the sky
So big and blue and pure above it all?
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep,
Entreat no more and demonstrate no more;
For I believe there is a God, a God
Not in the heaven, the earth, or the waters; no,
But in the heart of Man, on the dear lips
Of angel women, of heroic men!
O hopeless Wanderer that would not stay,
( " It is too late, I cannot rise again! " )
O Saint of faith in love behind the veils,
( " You must believe in God, for you are good! " )
O Sister who made holy with your kiss,
Your kiss in that wet dark mild night of March
There in the hideous infamous London streets
My cheek, and made my soul a sacred place,
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep!