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; A table, a broken chair; And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there! "Work-work-work! As prisoners work for crime! 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! And work-work — work, When the weather is warm and bright! While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling. As if to show me their sunny backs, And twit me with the spring. "O! but breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweetWith the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet! To feel as I used to feel, "O! but for one short hour A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for love or hope, But only time for grief! A little weeping would ease my heart; My tears must stop, for every drop Look at her garments Touch her not scornfully! Now is pure womanly. Make no deep scrutiny Take her up tenderly - Ere her limbs frigidly, Smooth and compose them; Dreadfully staring Perishing gloomily, Cross her hands humbly, Owning her weakness, And leaving, with meekness, FAREWELL, LIFE! FAREWELL, Life! my senses swim, Welcome, Life! the spirit strives: I smell the rose above the mould! It is not death to know this- but to But bears its blossoms into winter's [From The Legend of St. Olaf's Kirk.] VALBORG WATCHING AXEL'S DEPARTURE. AT kirk knelt Valborg, the cold altar-stone - The dull tramp of his troopers, up she fared She pushed her face between the mullions, looked And through the clear air watched it, tossing, pass She sought the scattered gold-threads that had formed With dull do-over of mean drudgeries, And miserable cheer of pitying mouths Whistling and whipping through small round of change From where they caught their color she came; HE erred, no doubt, perhaps he And now, when I look in the face of sinned; a daisy, My little girl's face I see, I see! My tears, down dropping, with theirs commingle, And they give my precious one back to me. LORD HOUGHTON (RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES). SINCE YESTERDAY. I'm not where I was yesterday, How catch his greeting tone, And thus I went up to his door, And they told me he was gone! Oh! what is Life but a sum of love, And not for those that fall! And now how mighty a sum of love Is lost for ever to me I have lost a thought that many a No, I'm not what I was yesterday, year Was most familiar food To my inmost mind, by night or day, In merry or plaintive mood; I have lost a hope, that many a year Looked far on a gleaming way, When the walls of Life were closing round, And the sky was sombre gray. I thought, how should I see him first, How should our hands first meet, Within his room, — upon the stair,— At the corner of the street? I thought, where should I hear him first, Though change there be little to see. |