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With its villa residences and its high-walled gardens and its well-appointed carriages, and its face turned away from the wriggling poverty which made it rich;

As I saw and remembered its drawing-room airs and affectations, and its wheezy pursy Church-going and its gas-reeking heavy furnished rooms and its scent-bottles and its other abominations

I shuddered:

For I felt stifled, like one who lies half-conscious --knowing not clearly the shape of the evil-in the grasp of some heavy nightmare.

Then out of the crowd descending towards me came a little ragged boy :

Came-from the background of dirt disengaging itself an innocent wistful child-face, begrimed like the rest but strangely pale, and pensive before its time.

And in an instant (it was as if a trumpet had been blown in that place) I saw it all clearly, the lie I saw and the truth, the false dream and the awakening.

For the smoke-blackened walls and the tall chimneys and the dreary habitations of the poor, and the drearier habitations of the rich, crumbled and conveyed themselves away as if by magic ;

And instead, in the backward vista of that face, I saw the joy of free open life under the sun :

The green sun-delighting earth and rolling sea I saw,

The free sufficing life-sweet comradeship, few needs and common pleasures-the needless endless burdens all cast aside,

Not as a sentimental vision, but as a fact and a necessity existing, I saw

In the backward vista of that face.

Stronger than all combinations of Capital, wiser than all the Committees representative of Labour, the simple need and hunger of the human heart. Nothing more is needed.

All the books of political economy ever written, all the proved impossibilities, are of no account. The smoke-blackened walls and tall chimneys duly crumble and convey themselves away;

The falsehood of a gorged and satiated society curlsand shrivels together like a withered leaf, Before the forces which lie dormant in the pale and wistful face of a little child.

Sunday Morning near a
Manufacturing Town

SUNDAY, a still autumn morning, and all the roads on the outskirts are thronged with people.

Where the streets begin to run wild towards the

country, with patch-work of garden-allotments, and occasional hedge-rows and overhanging trees, they go

Pale-faced men and girls hardly escaped for an hour or two from breathing the eternal smoke. The sun shines softly-it is very pleasant.

Here comes a whole family: the mother holds a baby to her breast, the father carries a little boy on his arm-two other children play around them ;

There go two factory girls, with faded shawls thrown over their heads-their arms round each other's necks; both have clear soft eyes, and both have fawn-coloured opaque skins, marked with the small-pox;

Here, shambling along in the opposite direction a group of ill-made boys, carrying dinner-kerchiefs crammed and purple-stained with blackberries. They have been out early and are returning.

Most of the men stand about in knots on the road or in their gardens, some smoking-some with fox-terriers and coursing-dogs.

Handsomely stand the yellow and the lilac dahlias on their tall stalks; and the marigolds and other flowers look well amid the green. The air is full of the scent of celery.

Some are banking up their celery-beds, some are getting potatoes, others lie on their backs enjoying the lazy air, others are gathering flowers.

Here comes one with a nosegay of all sorts, here another with a great armful of dahlias nodding amid their leaves as he walks, here another with quantities of brown and yellow calceolaria-almost every one has a flower of some sort.

There is plenty of chaff as the groups of young mechanics pass the groups of chatting, laughing girls—some go apart arm in arm together.

Withal the wan look of many faces there is I know not what sense of naturalness and wholesome feeling abroad to-day (the stuffy people are safe out of the way in church).

The air is full of voices and laughter; from some of the neighbouring cottages come sounds of music.

It is well. I welcome you, O crisp, uprising life!

I welcome you, O crisp, green shoot, which the still bright morning has called forth!

It does not need much to see how deep your roots are fed in the strong soil of necessity;

Not much to see how native and fresh a life you indicate,

And that the limp decaying leaves and dead things of the earth will not overlie you much longer.

MICHAEL FAIRLESS

A Song of Low Degree

LORD, I am small, and yet so great,

The whole world stands to my estate,

And in Thine Image I create.

The sea is mine; and the broad sky
Is mine in its immensity :

The river and the river's gold ;

The earth's hid treasures manifold;
The love of creatures small and great,
Save where I reap a previous hate;
The noon-tide sun with hot caress,
The night with quiet loveliness,
The wind that bends the pliant trees,
The whisper of the summer breeze;
The kiss of snow and rain; the star
That shines a greeting from afar ;
All, all are mine; and yet so small
Am I that lo, I needs must call,
Great King, upon the Babe in Thee,
And crave that Thou would'st give to me
The grace of Thy humility.

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