Songs of Labor and Other Poems | Page 6

thine only friend??Thy lovers pale, they have no end!?Thou vile one, may the devil take thee!?Begone and no more visits make me!?For--Yiddish writers not to mention--?Men hold thee no such rare invention.
--'Tis true! yet those must wait my leisure.?To be with thee is now my pleasure.?I love thy black and curling hair,?I love thy wounded heart's despair,?I love thy sighs, I love to swallow?Thy tears and all thy songs to follow.?Oh great indeed, might I but show it,?My love for thee, my pale-faced poet!
Away, I've heard all that before,?And am a writer, mark, no more.?Instead of verses, wares I tell,?And candy and tobacco sell.?My life is sweet, my life is bitter.?I'm ready and a prompt acquitter.?Oh, smarter traders there are many,?Yet live I well and turn a penny.
--A dealer then wilt thou remain,?Forever from the pen abstain??Good resolutions time disperses:?Thou yet shalt hunger o'er thy verses,?But vainly seeking to excuse thee?Because thou dost, tonight, refuse me.?Then open, fool, I tell thee plain,?That we perforce shall meet again.
Begone the way that I direct thee!?I've millionaires now to protect me;?No need to beg, no need to borrow,?Nor fear a penniless tomorrow,?Nor walk with face of blackest omen?To thrill the hearts of stupid foemen,?Who fain my pride to earth would bring,?Because, forsooth, I sweetly sing!
--Ho ho! ere thou art grown much older,?Thy millionaires will all grow colder.?Thou soon shalt be forgotten by them--?They've other things to occupy them!?Just now with thee they're playing kindly,?But fortune's wheel is turning blindly?To grind thy pleasures ere thou know it--?And thou art left to me, my poet!
The Phantom Vessel
Now the last, long rays of sunset?To the tree-tops are ascending,?And the ash-gray evening shadows?Weave themselves around the earth.
On the crest of yonder mountain,?Now are seen from out the distance?Slowly fading crimson traces;?Footprints of the dying day.
Blood-stained banners, torn and tattered,?Hanging in the western corner,?Dip their parched and burning edges?In the cooling ocean wave.
Smoothly roll the crystal wavelets?Through the dusky veils of twilight,?That are trembling down from heaven?O'er the bosom of the sea.
Soft a little wind is blowing?O'er the gently rippling waters--?What they whisper, what they murmur,?Who is wise enough to say?
Broad her snow-white sails outspreading?'Gainst the quiet sky of evening,?Flies a ship without a sailor,?Flies--and whither, who can tell?
As by magic moves the rudder;?Borne upon her snowy pinions?Flies the ship--as tho' a spirit?Drove her onward at its will!
Empty is she, and deserted,?Only close beside the mainmast?Stands a lonely child, heartbroken,?Sobbing loud and bitterly.
Long and golden curls are falling?Down his neck and o'er his shoulders;?Now he glances backward sighing,?And the silent ship flies on!
With a little, shining kerchief,?Fluttering upon the breezes,?Unto me he sends a greeting,?From afar he waves farewell.
And my heart is throbbing wildly,?I am weeping--tell me wherefore??God! that lovely child, I know him!?'Tis my youth that flies from me!
To My Misery
O Misery of mine, no other?In faithfulness can match with thee,?Thou more than friend, and more than brother,?The only thing that cares for me!
Where'er I turn, are unkind faces,?And hate and treachery and guile,?Thou, Mis'ry, in all times and places,?Dost greet me with thy pallid smile.
At birth I found thee waiting for me,?I knew thee in my cradle first,?The same small eyes and dim watched o'er me,?The same dry, bony fingers nursed.
And day by day when morning lightened,?To school thou led'st me--home did'st bring,?And thine were all the blooms that brightened?The chilly landscape of my spring.
And, thou my match and marriage monger,?The marriage deed by thee was read;?The hands foretelling need and hunger?Were laid in blessing on my head.
Thy love for me shall last unshaken,?No further proof I ask, for when?My hopes for aye were from me taken,?My Mis'ry, thou wert with me then;
And still, while sorrow's storm is breaking?Above me, and my head I bow--?The kindly and the unforsaking,?Oh Mis'ry, thou art with me now.
Ay, still from out Fate's gloomy towers?I see thee come to me again,?With wreaths of everlasting flowers,?And songs funereal in thy train.
And when life's curses rock me nightly,?And hushed I lie in slumber's hold,?Thy sable form comes treading lightly?To wrap me in its garments fold.
Thy brother let me be, and wholly?Repay thee all I owe, tho' late:?My aching heart, my melancholy,?My songs to thee I dedicate.
O Long The Way
O long the way and short the day,?No light in tower or town,?The waters roar and far the shore--?My ship, my ship goes down!
'Tis all in vain to strive again,?My cry the billows drown,?The fight is done, the wind has won--?My ship, my ship goes down!
Bright sun, adieu! Thou'lt shine anew?When skies no longer frown,?But I--the deafening billows crash--?My ship, my ship goes down!
To The Fortune Seeker
A little more, a little less!--?O shadow-hunters pitiless,?Why then so eager, say!?What'er you leave the grave will take,?And all you gain and all you make,?It will not last a day!
Full soon will come the Reaper Black,?Cut thorns and