The Farmer’s wife sat at the door,
A pleasant sight to see;
And blithesome were the wee, wee bairns
That played around her knee.
When, bending ’neath her heavy creel,
A poor fish-wife came by,
And, turning from the toilsome road,
Unto the door drew nigh.
She laid her burden on the green,
And spread its scaly...
The Irish Famine
GIVE me three grains of corn, mother,—
Only three grains of corn;
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.
I am dying of hunger and cold, mother,—
Dying of hunger and cold;
And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.
It has gnawed like a wolf, at my heart,...
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”
“Work! work! work
While the cock is crowing aloof!
...
There ’s a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot,—
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings;
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none,
He has...
The Shadows lay along Broadway,
’T was near the twilight-tide,
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
Walked spirits at her side.
Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
And Honor charmed the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair...
O The SNOW, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek;
Clinging to lips in a...
I Stood, one Sunday morning,
Before a large church door,
The congregation gathered,
And carriages a score,—
From one out stepped a lady
I oft had seen before.
Her hand was on a prayer-book,
And held a vinaigrette;
The sign of man’s redemption
Clear on the book was set,—
But above the cross there glistened...
“Drowned! drowned!”—Hamlet.
ONE more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care!
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements,
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;...
She stood at the bar of justice,
A creature wan and wild,
In form too small for a woman,
In feature too old for a child.
For a look so worn and pathetic
Was stamped on her pale young face,
It seemed long years of suffering
Must have left that silent trace.
“Your name,” said the judge, as he eyed her
With kindly...
She shrank from all, and her silent mood
Made her wish only for solitude:
Her eye sought the ground, as it could not brook,
For innermost shame, on another’s to look;
And the cheerings of comfort fell on her ear
Like deadliest words, that were curses to hear!—
She still was young, and she had been fair;
But weather-stains, hunger, toil,...
