William Laird

WE went (we both were boiling young) one night

To see six bouts on—never mind the street;

And passed, beneath a gas-lamp’s ghastly light,

A woman of prey, no longer fair, her feet

Long turned towards death. My comrade knew she came

From Ardmore town, where still they buzzed her shame.

He hailed her by a childish name which nigh

Had been forgotten, surely never heard

Since days in quiet Ardmore long gone by,

Irrevocable: “Buds! why, Buds!”—the word

Of what was gone. She hid her face in pain,

With God knows what hell-ringing through her brain.

What arrows then of utter woe might stir

Her trampled soul, I have no skill to guess:

The white name fouled against the front of her—

The name of hope mocking her hopelessness!

However, being boiling young, that night

We phrased no moral—went and saw the fight.