One Winter Night.

"Ragged Wretched, worn and weary,

Come the casuals, creeping in,

Where the Parish nightly shelters
Shame and sorrow, sloth and sin;
Where the wounded in life's battle
Pushed aside and trodden down,
Share the Poor Law's tender mercy
with the refuse of the town." 

When the night has flung her mantle
Rags and tatters kindly o'er
Come the outcasts, meekly knocking
At the black, forbidding door.
All the storm-tossed human wreckage,
Sport for fortune's changing tide,
Hither drifts as to harbour -
Foul and fair float side by side.

Here, through all the long night watches,
Want and woe can rest their heads;
Who shall say what bygone blisses
Hover round these narrow beds?
Stained with travel, bent and broken,
Here the starving outcast lies,
Yet he smiles - some happy vision
Sleep has drawn across his eyes.

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