Songs of Labor and Other Poems | Page 3

you yet._
The flow'rs and the trees will have withered ere long,?The last bird already is ending his song;?And soon will be leafless and shadeless the bow'rs...?I long, oh I long for the perfume of flow'rs!?To feel for a moment ere stripped are the trees,?In meadow lands open, the breath of the breeze.?--_You long for the meadow lands breezy and fair??O, soon enough others will carry you there._
The rivulet sparkles with heavenly light,?The wavelets they glisten, with diamonds bedight.?Oh, but for a moment to leap in the stream,?And play in the waters that ripple and gleam!?My body is weakened with terrible toil.--?The bath would refresh me, renew me the while.?--_You dream of a bath in the shimmering stream??'Twill come--when forever is ended your dream._
The sweatshop is smoky and gloomy and mean--?I strive--oh, how vainly I strive to be clean!?All day I am covered with grime and with dirt.?You'd laugh,--but I long for a spotless white shirt!?For life that is noble, 'tis needful, I ween,?To work as a man should; and still be as clean.?--_So now 'tis your wish all in white to be dressed??In white they will robe you, and lay you to rest._
The woods they are cool, and the woods they are free;--?To dream and to wander, how sweet it would be!?The birds their eternal glad holiday keep;?With song that enchants you and lulls you to sleep.?'Tis hot here,--and close! and the din will not cease.?I long for the forest, its coolth and its peace.?--_Ay, cool you will soon be; and not only cool,?But cold as no forest can make you, O Fool!_
I long for a friend who will comfort and cheer,?And fill me with courage when sorrow is near;?A comrade, of treasures the rarest and best,?Who gives to existence its crown and its crest;?And I am an orphan--and I am alone;?No friend or companion to call me his own.?--_Companions a-plenty--they're numberless too;?They're swarming already and waiting for you._
Whither?
(To a Young Girl)
Say whither, whither, pretty one??The hour is young at present!?How hushed is all the world around!?Ere dawn--the streets hold not a sound.?O whither, whither do you run??Sleep at this hour is pleasant.?The flowers are dreaming, dewy-wet;?The bird-nests they are silent yet.?Where to, before the rising sun?The world her light is giving?
"To earn a living."
O whither, whither, pretty child,?So late at night a-strolling??Alone--with darkness round you curled??All rests!--and sleeping is the world.?Where drives you now the wind so wild??The midnight bells are tolling!?Day hath not warmed you with her light;?What aid can'st hope then from the night??Night's deaf and blind!--Oh whither, child,?Light-minded fancies weaving?
"To earn a living."
From Dawn to Dawn
I bend o'er the wheel at my sewing;?I'm spent; and I'm hungry for rest;?No curse on the master bestowing,--?No hell-fires within me are glowing,--?Tho' pain flares its fires in my breast.
I mar the new cloth with my weeping,?And struggle to hold back the tears;?A fever comes over me, sweeping?My veins; and all through me goes creeping?A host of black terrors and fears.
The wounds of the old years ache newly;?The gloom of the shop hems me in;?But six o'clock signals come duly:?O, freedom seems mine again, truly...?Unhindered I haste from the din.

Now home again, ailing and shaking,?With tears that are blinding my eyes,?With bones that are creaking and breaking,?Unjoyful of rest... merely taking?A seat; hoping never to rise.
I gaze round me: none for a greeting!?By Life for the moment unpressed,?My poor wife lies sleeping--and beating?A lip-tune in dream false and fleeting,?My child mumbles close to her breast.
I look on them, weeping in sorrow,?And think: "When the Reaper has come--?When finds me no longer the morrow--?What aid then?--from whom will they borrow?The crust of dry bread and the home?
"What harbors that morrow," I wonder,?"For them when the breadwinner's gone??When sudden and swift as the thunder?The bread-bond is broken asunder,?And friend in the world there is none."
A numbness my brain is o'ertaking...?To sleep for a moment I drop:?Then start!... In the east light is breaking!--?I drag myself, ailing and aching,?Again to the gloom of the shop.
The Candle Seller
In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post,?There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost.?Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead,?And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red.?But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween,?May hardly the cause of their fading have been.?Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see.?A skeleton infant she holds on her knee.?It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps,?But soon at her cry it awakens and weeps--?"Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy,?As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!"
Tho' few are her wares, and her basket is small,?She earns her own living by these, when at all.?She's there with her baby in wind and in rain,?In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness