Ms Found In A Belfry
I stared down at Whitechapel's Streets
Reflected through a mirror,
Safe closeted in darkness with
The Camera Obscura,
From this one central vantage point
My eyes ranged over all
The sad rack of humanity,
Its petty rise and fall,
The Toffs, clad in their Toppers, and
The Dollymops procuring,
The drunkards and the thieves and rogues,
Beyond man's curse or curing.
All types had passed me slowly by,
As I stood watching, praying,
That should the Lord declare his love
Those lives might be worth saving,
I saw but heads and shoulders from
Where I stood, looking down,
The lens was tilted from a height,
From Camera to the ground,
They passed like busy, swarming ants,
Unknowing that above
Two eyes were watching closely, each
And every passing move.
Good Queen Victoria, bless her soul
Reigned over us on high,
Reigned over this unwholesome den
Of blind iniquity,
The people's pain and poverty
Showed up on every face,
It brought good men to curse and drink
And women to disgrace,
And worse, the streets of London then
Gave out some awful mist
Of evil humours, deadly sins
The poor could not resist.
Summer came and went, and then
Upon that final day,
Foul murder was to come to haunt
Each woman's right of way,
For Mary Nicholls, prostitute,
A shallow, aimless drunk,
Was found in Bucks Row, murdered there,
With little argument;
Her throat was slashed, her face destroyed,
Her body ripped and torn,
It was like some wild animal
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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