Insult Not The Fallen.

("Oh! n'insultez jamais une femme qui tombe.")     [XIV., Sept. 6, 1835.]     I tell you, hush! no word of sneering scorn -     True, fallen; but God knows how deep her sorrow.     Poor girl! too many like her only born     To love one day - to sin - and die the morrow.     What know you of her struggles or her grief?     Or what wild storms of want and woe and pain     Tore down her soul from honor? As a leaf     From autumn branches, or a drop of rain     That hung in frailest splendor from a bough -     Bright, glistening in the sunlight of God's day -     So had she clung to virtue once. But now -     See Heaven's clear pearl polluted with earth's clay!     The sin is yours - with your accursed gold -     Man's wealth is master - woman's soul the slave!     Some purest water still the mire may hold.     Is there no hope for her - no power to save?     Yea, once again to draw up from the clay     The fallen raindrop, till it shine above,     Or save a fallen soul, needs but one ray     Of Heaven's sunshine, or of human love.     W.C.K. WILDE.