rankest size,
Around the dwellings docks and wormwood rise;
Here the strong mallow strikes her slimy root,
Here the dull nightshade hangs her deadly fruit: 
On hills of dust the henbane’s faded green,
And pencil’d flower of sickly scent is seen;
At the wall’s base the fiery nettle springs,
With fruit globose and fierce with poison’d stings;
Above (the growth of many a year) is spread
The yellow level of the stone-crop’s bed: 
In every chink delights the fern to grow,
With glossy leaf and tawny bloom below;
These, with our sea-weeds, rolling up and down,
Form the contracted Flora of the town. 
   Say, wilt thou more of scenes so sordid know? 
Then will I lead thee down the dusty Row;
By the warm alley and the long close lane, —
There mark the fractured door and paper’d pane,
Where flags the noon-tide air, and, as we pass,
We fear to breathe the putrefying mass: 
But fearless yonder matron; she disdains
To sigh for zephyrs from ambrosial plains;
But mends her meshes torn, and pours her lay
All in the stifling fervour of the day. 
   Her naked children round the alley run,
And roll’d in dust, are bronzed beneath the sun,
Or gambol round the dame, who, loosely dress’d,
Woos the coy breeze to fan the open breast: 
She, once a handmaid, strove by decent art
To charm her sailor’s eye and touch his heart;
Her bosom then was veil’d in kerchief clean,
And fancy left to form the charms unseen. 
   But when a wife, she lost her former care,
Nor thought on charms, nor time for dress could spare;
Careless she found her friends who dwelt beside,
No rival beauty kept alive her pride: 
Still in her bosom virtue keeps her place,
But decency is gone, the virtues’ guard and grace. 
   See that long boarded Building!—­By these stairs
Each humble tenant to that home repairs —
By one large window lighted—­it was made
For some bold project, some design in trade: 
This fail’d,—­and one, a humourist in his way,
(Ill was the humour), bought it in decay;
Nor will he sell, repair, or take it down;
’Tis his,—­what cares he for the talk of town? 
“No! he will let it to the poor;—­a home
Where he delights to see the creatures come:” 
“They may be thieves;”—­“Well, so are richer men;”
“Or idlers, cheats, or prostitutes;”—­“What then?”
“Outcasts pursued by justice, vile and base;” —
“They need the more his pity and the place:” 
Convert to system his vain mind has built,
He gives asylum to deceit and guilt. 
   In this vast room, each place by habit fix’d,
Are sexes, families, and ages mix’d —
To union forced by crime, by fear, by need,
And all in morals and in modes agreed;
Some ruin’d men, who from mankind remove;
Some ruin’d females, who yet talk of love;
And some grown old in idleness—­the prey
To vicious spleen, still railing through the day;