So into the streets, warmly muffled, I came,
And turn’d my steps homeward, three miles in the fog;
When, threading a court (I can’t tell you its name),
I tripp’d against something I thought was a dog,
For it moan’d. I stoop’d down, half-expecting a bite;
But the thing never moved; then I look’d, and behold,
A baby, wrapt up in brown paper and night,
Half-dying with hunger, half-frozen with cold.
I return’d to the Foundling, and ringing the bell,
Gave Baby in charge; then, retracing my way,
I mused upon this which had happen’d, and fell
From my comedy-mood to a tragedy-play.
[Acte ye second.]
I had seen the first act—now the second began.
Night lifted her curtain; and, here in the street,
A minute City Arab, the least of his clan,
Patter’d past on the pavement,—no shoes to his feet;
Black, shivering, starving; not daring to beg,
Not able to work, not unwilling to steal,
If a chance came his way; he was fleet of his leg;
He would risk a policeman to pilfer a meal.
Sure enough the chance came; ’twas a truckful of bread;
No Gorgon to watch it—no dragon to slay;
Like a juvenile Jason, he plunder’d and fled;
Like a Jason, he found a Medea to pay—
In the shape of a lout, twice the size of himself,
The sole witness, by hunger made ruthless and keen;
He demolish’d the pilferer, pilfer’d the pelf,
Disappear’d with his booty—and down came the scene.
[Acte ye thyrde.]
Act the third was a garret;—I thought I had clomb
Up a hundred of stairs, to a hole in the roof,
Where a lad of eighteen had made shift of a home,—
With a wife, if you please—and a baby for proof.