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!
...
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;...
I Tell you, hopeless grief is passionless,—
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upwards to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man...
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the...
The Day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the...
Say not, the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired...
Anonymous translation from the German
IN early days methought that all must last;
Then I beheld all changing, dying, fleeting;
But though my soul now grieves for much that ’s past,
And changeful fortunes set my heart oft beating,
I yet believe in mind that all will last,
Because the old in new I still am meeting.
Anonymous translation from the German
PAIN’S furnace heat within me quivers,
God’s breath upon the flame doth blow,
And all my heart in anguish shivers,
And trembles at the fiery glow:
And yet I whisper, As God will!
And in his hottest fire hold still.
He comes and lays my heart, all heated,
On the hard anvil, minded so...
LEAVES have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north-wind’s breath,
And stars to set—but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.
Day is for mortal care,
Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth,
Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer—
But all for thee, thou mightiest of the...
