Up the Canongate climbeth, cleft asunder Raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea Flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder, Nay, for the City is throned on Eternity! Hark! from the soaring castle a cannon's thunder Closeth an hour for the world and an æon for me, Gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder Deathless memories roll to an ageless sea.
Three long isles of sunset-cloud, Poised in an ocean of gold, Floated away in the west As the long train southward rolled;
And through the gleam and shade of the panes, While meadow and wood went by, Across the streaming earth We watched the steadfast sky.
Dark before the westward window, Heavy and bloated, rolled The face of a drunken woman Nodding against the gold;
Dark before the infinite glory, With bleared and leering eyes, It stupidly lurched and nodded Against the tender skies.
_What had ye done to her, masters of men, That her head be bowed down thus-- Thus for your golden vespers, And deepening angelus?_
Dark, besotted, malignant, vacant, Slobbering, wrinkled, old, Weary and wickedly smiling, She nodded against the gold.
Pitiful, loathsome, maudlin, lonely, Her moist, inhuman eyes Blinked at the flies on the window, And could not see the skies.
As a beast that turns and returns to a mirror And will not see its face, Her eyes rejected the sunset, Her soul lay dead in its place,
Dead in the furrows and folds of her flesh As a corpse lies lapped in the shroud; Silently floated beside her The isles of sunset-cloud.
_What had ye done to her, years upon years, That her head should be bowed down thus-- Thus for your golden vespers, And deepening angelus?_
Her nails were blackened and split with labour, Her back was heavily bowed; Silently floated beside her The isles of sunset-cloud.
Over their tapering streaks of lilac, In breathless depths afar, Bright as the tear of an angel Glittered a lonely star.
While the hills and the streams of the world went past us, And the long train roared and rolled Southward, and dusk was falling, She nodded against the gold.
Down the dark alley a ring of orange light Glows. God, what leprous tatters of distress, Droppings of misery, rags of Thy loneliness Quiver and heave like vermin, out of the night!