| |
| WAS sorrow ever like unto our sorrow? | |
| O God above! | |
| Will our night never change into a morrow | |
| Of joy and love? | |
| A deadly gloom is on us—waking—sleeping— | 5 |
| Like the darkness at noon-tide | |
| That fell upon the pallid Mother, weeping | |
| By the Crucified. | |
| |
| Before us die our brothers of starvation: | |
| Around are cries of famine and despair: | 10 |
| Where is hope for us, or comfort, or salvation? | |
| Where, oh, where? | |
| If the angels ever hearken, downward bending, | |
| They are weeping, we are sure, | |
| At the litanies of human groans ascending | 15 |
| From the crush’d hearts of the poor. | |
| |
| When the human rests in love upon the human, | |
| All grief is light; | |
| But who bends one kind glance to illumine | |
| Our life-long night? | 20 |
| The air around is ringing with their laughter; | |
| God has only made the rich to smile: | |
| But we, in our rags and want and woe, we follow after, | |
| Weeping the while. | |
| |
| And the laughter seems but utter’d to deride us: | 25 |
| When, oh! when, | |
| Will fall the frozen barriers that divide us | |
| From other men? | |
| Will ignorance for ever thus enslave us! | |
| Will misery for ever lay us low? | 30 |
| All are eager with their insults, but to save us | |
| None, none, we know. | |
| |
| We never knew a childhood’s mirth and gladness, | |
| Nor the proud heart of youth free and brave; | |
| Oh! a death-like dream of wretchedness and sadness | 35 |
| Is our life’s weary journey to the grave. | |
| Day by day we lower sink and lower, | |
| Till the god-like soul within | |
| Falls crush’d, beneath the fearful demon power | |
| Of poverty and sin. | 40 |
| |
| So we toil on—on, with fever burning | |
| In heart and brain; | |
| So we toil on—on, through bitter scorning, | |
| Want, woe and pain: | |
| We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heaven | 45 |
| Or the toil must cease; | |
| We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given, | |
| One hour in peace. | |
| |
| We must toil, though the light of life is burning, | |
| Oh, how dim! | 50 |
| We must toil on our sick bed, feebly turning | |
| Our eyes to Him | |
| Who alone can hear the pale lip faintly saying | |
| With scarce mov’d breath, | |
| And the paler hands, uplifted, and the praying,— | 55 |
| “Lord, grant us Death!” | |
| |
