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Title: What Was It?
Author: John S. Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
IT was a low, black, miserable place;
Its roof was rotting; and above it hung
A cloud of murky vapor, sending down
Intolerable stench on all around.
The place was silent, save the creaking noise,
The steady motion of a dozen pumps,
That labored all the day, nor ceased at night.
Methought in it I heard a hundred groans;
Dropping of widows' tears, and cries of orphans;
Shrieks of some victim to the fiendish lust
Of men for gold; woe echoing woe,
And sighs, deep, long-drawn sighs of dark despair.
Around the place a dozen hovels stood,
Black with the smoke and steam that bathed them all;
Their windows had no glass, but rags and boards,
Torn hats and such-like, filled the paneless sash.
Beings, once men and women, in and out
Passed and repassed from darkness forth to light;
And children, ragged, dirty, and despised,
Clung to them. Children! heaven's early flowers,
In their spring-time of life, blighted and lost!
Children! those jewels of a parent's crown,
Crushed to the ground and crumbled to the dust.
Children! Heaven's representatives to man,
Made menial slaves to watch at Evil's gate,
And errand-boys to run at Sin's command.
I asked why thus it was; and one old man
Pushed up the visor of his cap, and said:
"That low, black building is the cause of all."
And would you know what 't was that wrought such ill,
And what the name of that low building was?
Go to thy neighbor, read to him these lines,
And if he does not tell thee right, at first,
Then come to me and you shall know its name.
[The end]
John S. Adams's poem: What Was It?
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