it is not long since, here among all these folk

in london, i should have held myself

of no account whatever,

but should have stood aside and made them way

thinking that they, perhaps,

had more right than i—for who was i?

now i see them just the same, and watch them.

but of what account do i hold them?

especially the young women. i look at them

as they dart and flash

before the shops, like wagtails on the edge of a

pool.

if i pass them close, or any man,

like sharp, slim wagtails they flash a little aside

pretending to avoid us; yet all the time

calculating.

they think that we adore them—alas, would it

were true!

probably they think all men adore them,

howsoever they pass by.

what is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring,

such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces,

like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like roman

hyacinths,

scyllas and yellow-haired hellebore, jonquils, dim

anemones,

even the sulphur auriculas,

flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel

cold to the touch,

flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost;

what is it, that, from the faces of the fair young

women

comes like a pungent scent, a vibration beneath

that startles me, alarms me, stirs up a repulsion?

they are the issue of acrid winter, these first-

flower young women;

their scent is lacerating and repellant,

it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache,

of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption;

it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption,

when destruction soaks through the mortified,

decomposing earth,

and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom

of the ground.

they are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification,

thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms,

with a loveliness i loathe;

for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart

must they need to root in!