Embankment at night, outcasts

by D. H. Lawrence

　　

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Outcasts.THE night rain, dripping unseen,Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands.The river, slipping betweenLamps, is rayed with golden bandsHalf way down its heaving sides;Revealed where it hides.Under the bridgeGreat electric carsSing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side.Far off, oh, midge after midgeDrifts over the gulf that barsThe night with silence, crossing the lamp-touched tide.At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridgeSleep in a row the outcasts,Packed in a line with their heads against the wall.Their feet, in a broken ridgeStretch out on the way, and a lout castsA look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall.Beasts that sleep will coverTheir faces in their flank; so theseHave huddled rags or limbs on the naked sleep.Save, as the tram-cars hoverPast with the noise of a breezeAnd gleam as of sunshine crossing the low black heap,Two naked faces are seenBare and asleep,Two pale clots swept and swept by the light of the cars.Foam-clots showing betweenThe long, low tidal-heap,The mud-weed opening two pale, shadowless stars.Over the pallor of only two facesPasses the gallivant beam of the trams;Shows in only two sad placesThe white bare bone of our shams.A little, bearded man, pale, peaked in sleeping,With a face like a chickweed flower.And a heavy woman, sleeping still keepingCallous and dour.Over the pallor of only two placesTossed on the low, black, ruffled heapPasses the light of the tram as it racesOut of the deep.Eloquent limbsIn disarraySleep-suave limbs of a youth with long, smooth thighsHutched up for warmth; the muddy rimsOf trousers frayOn the thin bare shins of a man who uneasily lies.The balls of five red toesAs red and dirty, bareYoung birds forsaken and left in a nest of mud—Newspaper sheets encloseSome limbs like parcels, and tearWhen the sleeper stirs or turns on the ebb of the flood—One heaped moundOf a woman's kneesAs she thrusts them upward under the ruffled skirt—And a curious dearth of soundIn the presence of theseWastrels that sleep on the flagstones without any hurt.Over two shadowless, shameless facesStark on the heapTravels the light as it tilts in its pacesGone in one leap.At the feet of the sleepers, watching,Stand those that waitFor a place to lie down; and still as they stand, they sleep,Wearily catchingThe flood's slow gaitLike men who are drowned, but float erect in the deep.Oh, the singing mansions,Golden-lighted tallTrams that pass, blown ruddily down the night!The bridge on its stanchionsStoops like a pallTo this human blight.On the outer pavement, slowly,Theatre people pass,Holding aloft their umbrellas that flash and are brightLike flowers of infernal molyOver nocturnal grassWetly bobbing and drifting away on our sight.And still by the rottenRow of shattered feet,Outcasts keep guard.Forgotten,Forgetting, till fate shall deleteOne from the ward.The factories on the Surrey sideAre beautifully laid in black on a gold-grey sky.The river's invisible tideThreads and thrills like ore that is wealth to the eye.And great gold midgesCross the chasmAt the bridgesAbove intertwined plasm.

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