"Quick! quick! quick!
"My lady is waiting to roam.
"If you wish to die, the needle ply;
"You can die when you reach your home."
And while the gas-lights flicker and play
The life of the sempstress ebbs away
In the West End work-room yonder.
Out in Babylon yonder,
In the blaze of the ball-room gay,
My lady sits; while round her flits
A skeleton slender and grey.
And the ghastly spectre standeth
By the side of my lady fair
So mournfully bland, and with bony hand
It plays with her costume rare.
And this is the song the ghostly guest
Sings, out in the ball-room yonder:
"Look! look! look!
"Sit ye scornful and proud.
"Your boddice a hearse; every stitch a curse;
"Your skirt a silken shroud."
For while the gas-lights flickered in play
The life of the sempstress ebbed away
In the West End work-room yonder.
A UNIVERSITY FOR WALES.
WRITTEN IN 1867, AND INSCRIBED TO THOSE WHO WERE THEN ENGAGED IN THE NOBLE AND PATRIOTIC WORK OF PROVIDING ONE.
In the cause of Education
Let us raise the standard high,
And in tones of exultation
"Upward—onward!" be the cry.
Let us rear this Fane of Learning—
Beauteous Temple of the Mind;
Where true hearts, for knowledge yearning,
May the priceless jewel find.
In the cause of Education
Let the glorious altar stand,
As a bulwark of the nation,
As a blessing in the land.
Let an unsectarian fabric
Grow in grandeur from the sod,
As a crown upon our manhood,
As a monument to God.
In the cause of Education
Let the wealth which Wisdom owns
Be out-scattered open-handed
To uprear this Throne of Thrones:
And, like bread upon the waters,
Hearts that give from store of gold
Will, in never-dying blessings,
Richly reap a thousand-fold.