POETRY.
A CITY COURTSHIP.
THE proper place for courting, By the story-books' reporting, Is some lane or meadow-pathway, out of sight of town, With the sweetness blowing over From the fields of beans and clover, And the skylark dropping nestward as the sun goes down.
But I've met my little Sally At the mouth of Dawson's Alley, And we've walked along together tow'rds the Dome of Paul's, 'Mid the jostling crowd that passes 'Neath the flaring lamps and gases, And the shouting of the drivers, and the newsboys' calls.
And the lily of the valley That I gave my little Sally Was the faded penny bouquet that a flower-girl sells ; She has never seen one growing, As it's easy to be showing, For its birthplace is the Dreamland that's beyond Bow Bells.
Oh ! it pains me in our walking—
All the oaths and shameful talking, And the folks that brush her passing, and the glances bold !
But though evil things may touch her, They can never hurt or smntch her, For she turns the dirt to sweetness, as a flower the mould.
Nay, it's not in country places, 'Mid the fields and simple faces, Out of sight and sound of evil, that a pure heart grows ; It is here in London city, In the sin and shame and pity ; For the pure heart draws its pureness from the wrong it knows.
When my Sally's sweetness found me, I was like the men around me ;
I was coarse and low and selfish as the beast that dies ;
But her grace began to win me, And my heart was changed within me, And I learned to pray from gazing in my darling's eyes.
FREDERICK. LANGBRIDGE.
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