invitation,
In words as affable and polished as yours, Mister,
To drink rice-spirit at The Blue Lantern,
And was there subjected to a custom of this country
Of an entirely disturbing and unpleasing nature,
Known as Ceremony of Confidence,
He has, since that day, viewed The Blue Lantern
With a feeling of most decided repugnance.

A Night-Piece

I climbed the other day up to the roof
Of the commanding and palatial Home for Asiatics
And looked across the city at the hour of no-light.

Across great space of dark I looked,
But the skirt of darkness had a hundred rents,
Made by the lights of many people's homes.

My life is a great skirt of darkness,
But human kindliness has torn it through,
So that it shows ten thousand gaping rents
Where the light comes in.

A Smile Given In Passing

As I walked the street in the purring evening
A little maid with yellow curls
Tossed me a smile; and suddenly Pennyfields
Grew from darkness to light, and the light of the stars
Grew pale.

I may not see her again, but I hold her smile in my heart,
And she is with me in my shop and about the streets.
My shop may tumble down;
West India Dock may some time suffer a drought;
Grief and Joy come for a day;
And Hope and Fear, and Desire and Deed
Arise and pass, and are no more;
But the beauty born of her quickened smile
Can never die.

Of a National Cash Register

Last week this person, desiring to make it known
That he was in all ways moving up to the date,
Introduced into his insignificant shop
A machine-that-counts,
Called a National Cash Register,
Which announces to refined and intelligent customers
The amounts of their purchases.

This week this person purchased a whole days' amusement;
And the amount he paid for this was another's discomfiture and pain.
And, after a night of cogitation,
He is moved to reflect on the far-reaching and wholesome value
Of a National Register which would announce to the face
The cost of such pleasures as this.

Under a Shining Window

A lamplit window,
At the top of a tenement house near Poplar High Street,
Shines fluently out of the night;
And looking upward I see
That the bricks of the houses are bright and fair to the eye.

There are no flowers in West India Dock Road;
Nothing but brick and stone, and iron and spent air.
But when rough brick