XCVII.

Sick with horror she shuts her eyes,
But the very stones seem uttering cries,
  As they did to that Persian daughter,
When she climb’d up the steep vociferous hill,
Her little silver flagon to fill
  With the magical Golden Water!

XCVIII.

  “Batter her! shatter her! 
  Throw and scatter her!”
Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer! 
  “Dash at the heavy Dover! 
Spill her! kill her! tear and tatter her! 
Smash her! crash her!” (the stones didn’t flatter her!)
“Kick her brains out! let her blood spatter her! 
  Roll on her over and over!”

XCIX.

For so she gather’d the awful sense
Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense,
  As the wild horse overran it,—­
His four heels making the clatter of six,
Like a Devil’s tattoo, play’d with iron sticks
  On a kettle-drum of granite!

C.

On! still on! she’s dazzled with hints
Of oranges, ribbons, and color’d prints,
A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints,
  And human faces all flashing,
Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints,
  That the desperate hoof keeps dashing!

CI.

On and on! still frightfully fast! 
Dover Street, Bond Street, all are past! 
But—­yes—­no—­yes!—­they’re down at last! 
  The Furies and Fates have found them! 
Down they go with sparkle and crash,
Like a Bark that’s struck by the lightning flash—­
    There’s a shriek—­and a sob—­
    And the dense dark mob
Like a billow closes around them!

* * * * *

CII.

      “She breathes!”
      “She don’t!”
      “She’ll recover!”
      “She won’t!”
  “She’s stirring! she’s living, by Nemesis!”
Gold, still gold! on counter and shelf! 
Golden dishes as plenty as delf;
Miss Kilmansegg’s coming again to herself
  On an opulent Goldsmith’s premises!

CIII.

Gold! fine gold!—­both yellow and red,
Beaten, and molten—­polish’d, and dead—­
To see the gold with profusion spread
  In all forms of its manufacture! 
But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg,
When the femoral bone of her dexter log
  Has met with a compound fracture?

CIV.

Gold may soothe Adversity’s smart;
Nay, help to bind up a broken heart;
But to try it on any other part
  Were as certain a disappointment,
As if one should rub the dish and plate,
Taken out of a Staffordshire crate—­
In the hope of a Golden Service of State—­
  With Singleton’s “Golden Ointment.”