Hark the rustle of a dress
Stiff with lavish costliness!
Here comes on whose cheek would flush
But to have her garment brush
'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin
Wove the weary 'broidery in,
Bending backward from her toil,
Lest her tears the silk might soil,
And in midnight's chill and murk,
Stitched her life into the work.
Shaping from her bitter thought,
Heart's-ease and forget-me-not,
Satirizing her despair
With the emblems woven there,
Little doth the wearer heed
Of the heart-break in the blede;
A hyena by her side
Skulks, down-looking--it is Pride.