Page images
PDF
EPUB

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family

Wipe those poor lips of hers Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses Escaped from the comb, Her fair auburn tresses; Whilst wonderment guesses Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!

O, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood with amazement, Houseless by night.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

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!
And work work work,

Till the stars shine through the roof?
It's O! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work!

[blocks in formation]

Till the brain begins to swim!

Work work work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

“O, men, with sisters dear!

O, men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives!

[blocks in formation]

In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread A shroud as well as a shirt.

"But why do I talk of death?
That phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own-
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;

O, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

❝ Work

work work!

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages?

A bed of straw,

A crust of bread — and rags.

That shattered roof and this naked floor

[blocks in formation]

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

[blocks in formation]

From weary chime to chime, Work- work work,

As prisoners work for crime!

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, As well as the weary hand.

"Work- work - work, In the dull December light,

« PreviousContinue »