| |
| WITHIN a dreary narrow room | |
| That looks upon a noisome street, | |
| Half fainting with the stifling heat, | |
| A starving girl works out her doom. | |
| Yet not the less in God’s sweet air | 5 |
| The little birds sing, free of care, | |
| And hawthorns blossom everywhere. | |
| |
| Swift, ceaseless toil scarce wins her bread: | |
| From early dawn till twilight falls, | |
| Shut in by four dull, ugly walls, | 10 |
| The hours crawl round with murderous tread. | |
| And all the while, in some still place, | |
| Where intertwining boughs embrace, | |
| The blackbirds build, time flies apace. | |
| |
| With envy of the folk who die, | 15 |
| Who may at last their leisure take, | |
| Whose longed-for sleep none roughly wake, | |
| Tired hands the restless needle ply. | |
| But far and wide in meadows green | |
| The golden buttercups are seen, | 20 |
| And reddening sorrel nods between. | |
| |
| Too pure and proud to soil her soul, | |
| Or stoop to basely-gotten gain, | |
| By days of changeless want and pain | |
| The seamstress earns a prisoner’s dole. | 25 |
| While in the peaceful fields the sheep | |
| Feed, quiet; and through heaven’s blue deep | |
| The silent cloud-wings stainless sweep. | |
| |
| And if she be alive or dead, | |
| That weary woman scarcely knows; | 30 |
| But back and forth her needle goes | |
| In tune with throbbing heart and head. | |
| Lo, where the leaning alders part, | |
| White-bosomed swallows, blithe of heart, | |
| Above still waters skim and dart. | 35 |
| |
| O God in heaven! shall I, who share | |
| That dying woman’s womanhood, | |
| Taste all the summer’s bounteous good | |
| Unburdened by her weight of care? | |
| The white moon-daisies star the grass, | 40 |
| The lengthening shadows o’er them pass, | |
| The meadow tool is smooth as glass. | |
| |
