Songs of Labor and Other Poems | Page 5

you? With our children small?Relentlessly expel us??Oh let us be! We'll sleep at night?In corners dark; the city?Has room for all! And some kind soul?Will give a crust in pity.
"For wife and children I will toil:?It cannot be much longer?(For God almighty is and good!)?Ere I for work am stronger.?Oh let us here with men remain,?Nor drive us any further!?Oh why our curses will you have,?And not our blessings rather!"
And now the sick man quails before?The judge's piercing glances:?"No, only two of you shall go?This time and take your chances.?Your wife and you! The children four?You'll leave, my man, behind you,?For them, within the Orphan's Home,?Free places I will find you."
The father's dumb--the mother shrieks:?"My babes and me you'd sever??If God there be, such cruel act?Shall find forgiveness never!?But first, oh judge, must you condemn?To death their wretched mother--?I cannot leave my children dear?With you or any other!
"I bore and nursed them, struggling still?To shelter and to shield them,?Oh judge, I'll beg from door to door,?My very life-blood yield them!?I know you do not mean it, judge,?With us poor folk you're jesting.?Give back my babes, and further yet?We'll wander unprotesting."
The judge, alas! has turned away,?The paper dread unrolled,?And useless all the mother's grief,?The wild and uncontrolled.?More cruel can a sentence be?Than that which now is given??Oh cursed the system 'neath whose sway?The human heart is riven!
A Millionaire
No, not from tuning-forks of gold?Take I my key for singing;?From Upper Seats no order bold?Can set my music ringing;?But groans the slave through sense of wrong,?And naught my voice can smother;?As flame leaps up, so leaps my song?For my oppressed brother.
And thus the end comes swift and sure...?Thus life itself must leave me;?For what can these my brothers poor?In compensation give me,?Save tears for ev'ry tear and sigh?--?(For they are rich in anguish).?A millionaire of tears am I,?And mid my millions languish.
September Melodies
I
The summer is over!?'Tis windy and chilly.?The flowers are dead in the dale.?All beauty has faded,?The rose and the lily?In death-sleep lie withered and pale.
Now hurries the stormwind?A mournful procession?Of leaves and dead flowers along,?Now murmurs the forest?Its dying confession,?And hushed is the holiest song.
Their "prayers of departure"?The wild birds are singing,?They fly to the wide stormy main.?Oh tell me, ye loved ones,?Whereto are ye winging??Oh answer: when come ye again?
Oh hark to the wailing?For joys that have vanished!?The answer is heavy with pain:?Alas! We know only?That hence we are banished--?But God knows of coming again!
II
The Tkiyes*-man has blown his horn,?And swift the days' declining;?The leaves drop off, in fields forlorn?Are tender grasses pining.
The earth will soon be cold and bare,?Her robe of glory falling;?Already to the mourner's prayer?The last wild bird is calling.
He sings so sweetly and so sad?A song of friends who parted,?That even if it find you glad,?It leaves you broken hearted.
The copses shudder in the breeze,?Some dream-known terror fearing.?Awake! O great and little trees!?The Judgment-day is nearing!
O men! O trees in copses cold!?Beware the rising weather!?Or late or soon, both young and old?Shall strew the ground together....
[*Tkiye: first blast of the Ram's horn.]
Depression
All the striving, all the failing,?To the silent Nothing sailing.?Swiftly, swiftly passing by!?For the land of shadows leaving,?Where a wistful hand is weaving?Thy still woof, Eternity!
Gloomy thoughts in me awaken,?And with fear my breast is shaken,?Thinking: O thou black abyss;?All the toil and thrift of life,?All the struggle and the strife,?Shall it come at last to this?
With the grave shall be requited?Good and evil, and united?Ne'er to separate again??What the light hath parted purely,?Shall the darkness join more surely?--?Was the vict'ry won in vain?
O mute and infinite extension,?O time beyond our comprehension,?Shall thought and deed ungarnered fall??Ev'rything dost take and slay,?Ev'rything dost bear away,?Silent Nothing, silent All!...
The Canary
The free canary warbles?In leafy forest dell:?Who feels what rapture thrills her,?And who her joy can tell?
The sweet canary warbles?Where wealth and splendor dwell:?Who knows what sorrow moves her,?And who her pain can tell?
Want And I
Who's there? who's there? who was it tried?To force the entrance I've denied??An 'twere a friend, I'd gladly borne it,?But no--'twas Want! I could have sworn it.?I heard thy voice, old witch, I know thee!?Avaunt, thou evil hag, beshrew thee!?God's curse! why seekest thou to find me??Away to all black years behind me!
To torture me was thine endeavor,?My body from my soul to sever,?Of pride and courage to deprive me,?And into beggary to drive me.?Begone, where thousand devils burn--?Begone, nor evermore return!?Begone, most wretched thou of creatures,?And hide for aye thine hateful features!?--Beloved, ope the door in pity!
No friend have I in all the city?Save thee, then open to my call!?The night is bleak, the snowflakes fall.?Thine own, old Want am I, believe me!?Ah, what delight, wilt thou receive me??I found, when I from thee had parted,?No friend but he was fickle-hearted!
Away, old hag! Thou liest, lo,?Thou harbinger of pain and woe!?Away--am I