Hand in Hand/At Port Said

by Alice MacDonald Fleming

At Port Said

HOW the sun beat upon that barren land,
And lit the glass and gilt and tawdryness
Of "The Saloon": a haunt of wickedness,
From whose wide windows blared a jangling band,
There was a heap of refuse on the sand,
And in community of wretchedness,
A woman and a pig, in hunger's stress
Rooted among the filth with snout and hand,
"Seeking their meat from God." Pitiless Lord,
This woman's life Thy gift? Mad, hopeless, wild,
Herding with swine: abandoned and defiled:
A terror in the sun, a sight abhorred,
Our silver coins unheeded near her lay,
And the pig nosed them as we turned away.