Margaret. [below]
Who’s this lies here?
The People.
Thy mother’s son.
Margaret.
Almighty God! my brother dead!
Valentin.
I die! I die!—’tis quickly said,
And yet more quickly done.
Why stand you, women, and weep and wail?
Draw near, and listen to my tale!
[They all come round him.]
My Margaret, mark me, you are young,
And in sense not overstrong;
You manage matters ill.
I tell thee in thine ear, that thou
Art, once for all, a strumpet,—now
Mayst go and take thy fill.
Margaret.
My brother! God! what do you mean?
Valentin.
Leave the Lord God out of the jest;
Said is said, and done is done;
Now you may manage, as you best
Know how to help the matter on.
You commenced the trade with one,
We shall have two, three, four, anon,
Next a dozen, and next a score,
And then the whole town at your door.
When sin is born it shuns the light
(For conscience guilt may not abide it),
And they draw the veil of night
Over head and ears, to hide it;
Yea, they would murder it, if they might.
But anon it waxes bolder,
And walks about in broad day-light,
And, uglier still as it grows older,
The less it offers to invite,
The more it courts the public sight.
Even now, methinks, I see the day,
When every honest citizen,
As from a corpse of tainted clay,
From thee, thou whore! will turn away.
Thy very heart shall fail thee then,
When they shall look thee in the face!
No more shall golden chain thee grace!
The Church shall spurn thee from its door!
The altar shall not own thee more!
Nor longer, with thy spruce lace-tippet,
Where the dance wheels, shalt thou trip it!
