Ye maides in waiting all be here
Of Summertide, to deck her hall,
To hang her arras, woven all
With golden flowers and verdure clear;
To stretch her carpet far and near
Of soft green moss o’er stone and wall;
Ye maides in waiting all be here
Of Summertide, to deck her hall.
Hearts that but late were cold and drear
Now (prais’d be God!), their joy recall;
Come, come away, with snow-wrapped pall!
Out on thee, Winter, old and blear!
Ye maides in waiting all be here...
The Song of the Poor.
“O Rois qui serez jugés à votre tour.”
_Banville._
O kings, who must yourselves be judged one day,
Think of the wretched poor that ever stand
On Famine’s edge, and pity them! They pray
For you and love you; drudging till your land,
And, toiling, fill your coffers--they withstand
Your enemies; yet damned on earth they fare,
Woe infinite and endless pain they bear;
Not one there is but knows the keen distress
Of cold, of heat, and rain and ceaseless care,
For to the poor all things are bitterness.
Even as a beast of burden, scourged amain,
The wretched peasant lives his hopeless life.
Does he but pluck his grapes, or dare refrain
An hour from drudging toil, and choose a wife
To share the sorrow of his unequal strife,--
His lord, a savage bird of prey, draws nigh;
Relentless comes, and, saying “Here am I!”
Seizes what little he may chance possess.
Nothing avails the vassal’s pleading cry,
For to the poor all things are bitterness.
Pity the wretched jester in your halls!
Think on the fisher when the black waves curl
Their frothing tongues, and crackling lightning falls
On his frail boat! Pity the blue-eyed girl,
Lowly and dreaming, as her young hands whirl
The droning wheel! Think of a mother’s pain
And torment, as she weeps and seeks in vain,
Holding her fair dead child in blind distress,
To warm its cold heart back to life again.
O, to the poor all things are bitterness.