Buds

We went (we both were boiling young) one night

To see six bouts on-never mind the street;

And passed, beneath a gas-lamp's ghastly light,

A woman of prey, uo longer fair, her feet

Long turned towards death. ' My comrade knew she came

From Ardmore town, where still they buzzed her shame.

He hailed her by a childish name which nigh

Had been forgotten, surely never heard

Since days in quiet Ardmore long gone by,

Irrevocable: 'Buds! why, Buds!"-the word

Of what was gone. She hid her face in pain,

With God knows what hell-ringing through her brain.

What arrows then of utter woe might stir

Her trampled soul, I have no skill to guess:

The white name fouled against the front of her-

The name of hope mocking her hopelessness!

However, being boiling young, that night

We phrased no moral-went and saw the fight.

William Laird

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