HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) | |
Outside fair costumewithin ashes and filth, | |
No more a flashing eyeno more a sonorous voice or springy step; | |
Now some slaves eye, voice, hands, step, | |
A drunkards breath, unwholesome eaters face, venerealees flesh, | 5 |
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, | |
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, | |
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, | |
Words babble, hearing and touch callous, | |
No brain, no heart leftno magnetism of sex; | 10 |
Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, | |
Such a result so soonand from such a beginning! | |