With fingers weary and worn,With eyelids heavy and red,A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,Plying her needle and thread—Stitch! stitch! stitch!In poverty, hunger and dirt,And still with a voice of dolorous pitchShe sang the "Song of the Shirt!""Work! work! work!While the cock is crowing aloof!And work—work—work,Till the stars shine through the roof!It's oh! to be a slaveAlong with the barbarous Turk,Where a woman has never a soul to save,If this is Christian work!"Work—work—work,Till the brain begins to swim;Work—work—work,Till the eyes are heavy and dim!Seam, and gusset, and band,Band, and gusset, and seam,Till over the buttons I fall asleep,And sew them on in a dream!"O men, with sisters dear!O men, with mothers and wives!It is not linen you're wearing out,But human creatures' lives!Stitch—stitch—stitch!In poverty, hunger, and dirt,—Sewing at once, with a double thread,A shroud as well as a shirt!"But why do I talk of Death,—That phantom of grisly bone?I hardly fear his terrible shape,It seems so like my own,—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—this naked floor—A table—a broken chair—And a wall so blank, my shadow I thankFor sometimes falling there!"Work—work—work!From weary chime to chime!Work—work—workAs prisoners work for crime!Band, and gusset, and seam,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 eavesThe brooding swallows cling,As if to show me their sunny backs,And twit me with the spring."Oh, but to breathe the breathOf the cowslip and primrose sweet,—With the sky above my head,And the grass beneath my feet!For only one short hourTo feel as I used to feel,Before I knew the woes of wantAnd the walk that costs a meal!"Oh, 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;But in their briny bedMy tears must stop, for every dropHinders needle and thread!"With fingers weary and worn,With eyelids heavy and red,A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,Plying her needle and thread,—Stitch! stitch! stitch!In poverty, hunger and dirt;And still with a voice of dolorous pitch—Would that its tone could reach the rich!—She sang this "Song of the Shirt."Thomas Hood.
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night!Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,Christmas where snow-peaks stand solemn and white,Christmas where corn-fields lie sunny and bright,Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night!Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,Christmas where old men are patient and gray,Christmas where peace, like a dove in its flight,Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight;Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all,No palace too great and no cottage too small,The angels who welcome Him sing from the height:"In the city of David, a King in his might."Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!Then let every heart keep its Christmas within,Christ's pity for sorrow, Christ's hatred of sin,Christ's care for the weakest, Christ's courage for right,Christ's dread of the darkness, Christ's love of the light.Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!So the stars of the midnight which compass us roundShall see a strange glory, and hear a sweet sound,And cry, "Look! the earth is aflame with delight,O sons of the morning, rejoice at the sight."Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!Philllips Brooks.
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the seas and the streams;I bear light shade for the leaves when laidIn their noon-day dreams.From my wings are shaken the dews that wakenThe sweet buds every one,When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,As she dances about the sun.I wield the flail of the lashing hail,And whiten the green plains under,And then again I dissolve it in rain,And laugh as I pass in thunder.I sift the snow on the mountains below,And their great pines groan aghast;And all the night 'tis my pillow white,While I sleep in the arms of the blast.Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,Lightning my pilot sits,In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,It struggles and howls at fits;Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,This pilot is guiding me,Lured by the love of the genii that moveIn the depths of the purple sea;Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,Over the lakes and the plains,Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,The Spirit he loves remains;And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,Whilst he is dissolving in rains.The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,And his burning plumes outspread,Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,When the morning star shines dead;As on the jag of a mountain crag,Which an earthquake rocks and swings,An eagle alit one moment may sitIn the light of its golden wings.And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,Its ardors of rest and of love,And the crimson pall of eve may fallFrom the depth of heaven above,With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,As still as a brooding dove.That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,Whom mortals call the moon,Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,By the midnight breezes strewn;And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,Which only the angels hear,May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,The stars peep behind her and peer;And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,Like a swarm of golden bees,When I widen the rent in my windbuilt tent,Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,Like strips of the sky fallen thro' me on high,Are each paved with the moon and these.I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,Over a torrent sea,Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,The mountains its columns be.The triumphal arch thro' which I march,With hurricane, fire, and snow,When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,Is the million-colored bow;The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,Whilst the moist earth was laughing below.I am the daughter of earth and water,And the nursling of the sky;I pass thro' the pores of the ocean and shores;I change, but I cannot die.For after the rain, when, with never a stainThe pavilion of heaven is bare,And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleamsBuild up the blue dome of air,I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,And out of the caverns of rain,Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,I arise and unbuild it again,Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert,That from heaven, or near it,Pourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art.Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springestLike a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.In the golden lightningof the sunken sun,O'er which clouds are bright'ning,Thou dost float and run,Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.The pale purple evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of heaven,In the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:Keen as are the arrowsOf that silver sphereWhose intense lamp narrowsIn the white dawn clear.Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,As, when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.What thou art we know not;What is most like thee?From rainbow clouds there flow notDrops so bright to see,As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:—Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:Like a high-born maidenIn a palace-tower,Soothing her love-ladenSoul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aerial hueAmong the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:Like a rose emboweredIn its own green leaves,By warm winds deflowered,Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:Sound of vernal showersOn the twinkling grass,Rain-awakened flowers,All that ever wasJoyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.Teach us, sprite or bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.Chorus Hymeneal,Or triumphal chaunt,Matched with thine would be allBut an empty vaunt,A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.What objects are the fountainsOf thy happy strain?What fields, or waves, or mountains?What shapes of sky or plain?What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?With thy clear keen joyanceLanguor cannot be:Shadow of annoyanceNever came near thee:Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.Waking or asleep,Thou of death must deemThings more true and deepThan we mortals dream,Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?We look before and afterAnd pine for what is not:Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.Yet if we could scornHate, and pride, and fear;If we were things bornNot to a shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.Better than all measuresOf delightful sound,Better than all treasuresThat in books are found.Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know,Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flow,The world should listen then, as I am listening now,Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,I make a sudden sally,And sparkle out among the fern,To bicker down a valley.By thirty hills I hurry down,Or slip between the ridges,By twenty thorps, a little town,And half a hundred bridges.Till last by Philip's farm I flowTo join the brimming river,For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.I chatter over stony ways,In little sharps and trebles,I bubble into eddying bays,I babble on the pebbles.With many a curve my banks I fretBy many a field and fallow,And many a fairy foreland setWith willow-weed and mallow.I chatter, chatter as I flowTo join the brimming river,For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.I wind about, and in and out,With here a blossom sailing,And here and there a lusty trout,And here and there a grayling,And here and there a foamy flakeUpon me as I travelWith many a silvery waterbreakAbove the golden gravel,And draw them all along, and flowTo join the brimming river,For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.I steal by lawns and grassy plots,I slide by hazel covers;I move the sweet forget-me-notsThat grow for happy lovers.I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,Among my skimming swallows;I make the netted sunbeam danceAgainst my sandy shallows.I murmur under moon and stars,In brambly wildernesses;I linger by my shingly bars;I loiter round my cresses;And out again I curve and flowTo join the brimming river,For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
No price is set on the lavish summer,June may be had by the poorest comer.And what is so rare as a day in June?Then, if ever, come perfect days;Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear lays;Whether we look, or whether we listen,We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;Every clod feels a stir of might,An instinct within it that reaches and towers,And, groping blindly above it for light,Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;The flush of life may well be seenThrilling back over hills and valleys;The cowslip startles in meadows green,The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,And there's never a leaf nor a blade too meanTo be some happy creature's palace;The little bird sits at his door in the sun,Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,And lets his illumined being o'errunWith the deluge of summer it receives;His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?Now is the high-tide of the year,And whatever of life hath ebbed awayComes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,We are happy now because God wills it;No matter how barren the past may have been,'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;We sit in the warm shade and feel right wellHow the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowingThat skies are clear and grass is growing;The breeze comes whispering in our ear,That dandelions are blossoming near,That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,That the river is bluer than the sky,That the robin is plastering his house hard by;And if the breeze kept the good news back,For other couriers we should not lack;We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,Warmed with the new wine of the year,Tells all in his lusty crowing!Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;Everything is happy now,Everything is upward striving;'T is as easy now for the heart to be trueAs for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—'T is the natural way of living.Who knows whither the clouds have fled?In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake,And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;The soul partakes the season's youth,And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woeLie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.James Russell Lowell.
Come, let us plant the apple-tree.Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;Wide let its hollow bed be made;There gently lay the roots, and thereSift the dark mould with kindly care.And press it o'er them tenderly,As round the sleeping infant's feetWe softly fold the cradle-sheet;So plant we the apple tree.What plant we in this apple-tree?Buds, which the breath of summer daysShall lengthen into leafy sprays;Boughs where the thrush with crimson breastShall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;We plant, upon the sunny lea,A shadow for the noontide hour,A shelter from the summer shower,When we plant the apple-tree.What plant we in this apple-tree?Sweets for a hundred flowery springs,To load the May-wind's restless wings,When, from the orchard row, he poursIts fragrance through our open doors;A world of blossoms for the bee,Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,We plant with the apple-tree.What plant we in this apple-tree?Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,And redden in the August noon,And drop, when gentle airs come by,That fan the blue September sky.While children come, with cries of glee,And seek them where the fragrant grassBetrays their bed to those who pass,At the foot of the apple tree.And when, above this apple tree,The winter stars are quivering bright,And winds go howling through the night,Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,And guests in prouder homes shall see,Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine,And golden orange of the Line,The fruit of the apple-tree.The fruitage of this apple-treeWinds, and our flag of stripe and starShall bear to coasts that lie afar,Where men shall wonder at the view,And ask in what fair groves they grew;And sojourners beyond the seaShall think of childhood's careless dayAnd long, long hours of summer play,In the shade of the apple-tree.Each year shall give this apple-treeA broader flush of roseate bloom,A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.The years shall come and pass, but weShall hear no longer, where we lie,The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,In the boughs of the apple-tree.And time shall waste this apple tree.Oh, when its aged branches throwThin shadows on the ground below,Shall fraud and force and iron willOppress the weak and helpless still?What shall the tasks of mercy be,Amid the toils, the strifes, the tearsOf those who live when length of yearsIs wasting this apple-tree?"Who planted this old apple-tree?"The children of that distant dayThus to some aged man shall say;And, gazing on its mossy stem,The gray-haired man shall answer them:"A poet of the land was he,Born in the rude but good old times;'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymesOn planting the apple-tree."William Cullen Bryant.
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is heThat every man in arms should wish to be?—It is the generous Spirit, who, when broughtAmong the tasks of real life, hath wroughtUpon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:Whose high endeavors are an inward lightThat makes the path before him always bright:Who, with a natural instinct to discernWhat knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,But makes his moral being his prime care;Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!Turns his necessity to glorious gain;In face of these doth exercise a powerWhich is our human nature's highest dower;Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereavesOf their bad influence, and their good receives:By objects, which might force the soul to abateHer feeling, rendered more compassionate;Is placable—because occasions riseSo often that demand such sacrifice;More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure,As tempted more; more able to endure,As more exposed to suffering and distress;Thence also, more alive to tenderness.—'Tis he whose law is reason; who dependsUpon that law as on the best of friends;Whence, in a state where men are tempted stillTo evil for a guard against worse ill,And what in quality or act is bestDoth seldom on a right foundation rest,He labors good on good to fix, and owesTo virtue every triumph that he knows:—Who, if he rise to station of command,Rises by open means; and there will standOn honorable terms, or else retire,And in himself possess his own desire;Who comprehends his trust, and to the sameKeeps faithful with a singleness of aim;And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in waitFor wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,Like showers of manna, if they come at all;Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,Or mild concerns of ordinary life,A constant influence, a peculiar grace;But who, if he be called upon to faceSome awful moment to which Heaven has joinedGreat issues, good or bad for human kind,Is happy as a Lover; and attiredWith sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the lawIn calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;Or if an unexpected call succeed,Come when it will, is equal to the need:—He who, though thus endued as with a senseAnd faculty for storm and turbulence,Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leansTo homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,Are at his heart; and such fidelityIt is his darling passion to approve;More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—'Tis, finally, the Man who lifted high,Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—Who, with a toward or untoward lot,Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not—Plays, in the many games of life, that oneWhere what he most doth value must be won:Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,Nor thought of tender happiness betray;Who, not content that former worth stand fast,Looks forward, persevering to the last,From well to better, daily self-surpast:Who, whether praise of him must walk the earthForever, and to noble deeds give birth,Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,And leave a dead unprofitable name—Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;And, while the mortal mist is gathering, drawsHis breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:This is the happy Warrior; this is HeThat every Man in arms should wish to be.William Wordsworth.