English poem

Of Two Dwellings

At the lower end of Limehouse Causeway Is a house where girls surrender their bodies To the pleasures of base-minded and unpolished men, In return for shillings. And on the walls about this house Blossoms at summer the wild white rose.

In a tiny room at the top of a tenement Lives a white maid of surpassing virtue, Gentle in manner and quiet and dutiful, Combing her golden curls each morning Before a window that looks out to hell; That looks upon cesspools of mud, and mounds of refuse and the offal of the shops.

More by Thomas Burke

Of Inaccessible Beauty
Of Politicians
Of Shop Windows
Of the Great White War
Of Worship and Conduct
On a Saying of Mencius
One Service Breeds Another
Parent and Child

All 40 poems by Thomas Burke