(To a Young Girl)

Say whither, whither, pretty one?
The hour is young at present!
How hushed is all the world around!
Ere dawn—the streets hold not a sound.
O whither, whither do you run?
Sleep at this hour is pleasant.
The flowers are dreaming, dewy-wet;
The bird-nests they are silent yet.
Where to, before the rising sun
The world her light is giving?

“To earn a living.”

O whither, whither, pretty child,
So late at night a-strolling?
Alone—with darkness round you curled?
All rests!—and sleeping is the world.
Where drives you now the wind so wild?
The midnight bells are tolling!
Day hath not warmed you with her light;
What aid can’st hope then from the night?
Night’s deaf and blind!—Oh whither, child,
Light-minded fancies weaving?

“To earn a living.”

[From Dawn to Dawn]

I bend o’er the wheel at my sewing;
I’m spent; and I’m hungry for rest;
No curse on the master bestowing,—
No hell-fires within me are glowing,—
Tho’ pain flares its fires in my breast.

I mar the new cloth with my weeping,
And struggle to hold back the tears;
A fever comes over me, sweeping
My veins; and all through me goes creeping
A host of black terrors and fears.

The wounds of the old years ache newly;
The gloom of the shop hems me in;
But six o’clock signals come duly:
O, freedom seems mine again, truly...
Unhindered I haste from the din.

* * * * *

Now home again, ailing and shaking,
With tears that are blinding my eyes,
With bones that are creaking and breaking,
Unjoyful of rest... merely taking
A seat; hoping never to rise.

I gaze round me: none for a greeting!
By Life for the moment unpressed,
My poor wife lies sleeping—and beating
A lip-tune in dream false and fleeting,
My child mumbles close to her breast.

I look on them, weeping in sorrow,
And think: “When the Reaper has come—
When finds me no longer the morrow—
What aid then?—from whom will they borrow
The crust of dry bread and the home?

“What harbors that morrow,” I wonder,
“For them when the breadwinner’s gone?
When sudden and swift as the thunder
The bread-bond is broken asunder,
And friend in the world there is none.”

A numbness my brain is o’ertaking...
To sleep for a moment I drop:
Then start!... In the east light is breaking!—
I drag myself, ailing and aching,
Again to the gloom of the shop.

[The Candle Seller]

In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post,
There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost.
Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead,
And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red.
But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween,
May hardly the cause of their fading have been.
Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see.
A skeleton infant she holds on her knee.
It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps,
But soon at her cry it awakens and weeps—
“Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy,
As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!”

Tho’ few are her wares, and her basket is small,
She earns her own living by these, when at all.
She’s there with her baby in wind and in rain,
In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain.
She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack—
No home and no food, and no cloak to her back.
She’s kithless and kinless—one friend at the most,
And that one is silent: the telegraph post!
She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still,
Altho’ she is wretched, forsaken and ill,
She cries Sabbath candles to those that come nigh,
And all that she pleads is, that people will buy.

To honor the sweet, holy Sabbath, each one
With joy in his heart to the market has gone.
To shops and to pushcarts they hurriedly fare;
But who for the poor, wretched woman will care?
A few of her candles you think they will take?—
They seek the meat patties, the fish and the cake.
She holds forth a hand with the pitiful cry:
“Two cents, my good women, three candles will buy!”
But no one has listened, and no one has heard:
Her voice is so weak, that it fails at each word.
Perchance the poor mite in her lap understood,
She hears mother’s crying—but where is the good

I pray you, how long will she sit there and cry
Her candles so feebly to all that pass by?
How long will it be, do you think, ere her breath
Gives out in the horrible struggle with Death?
How long will this frail one in mother-love strong,
Give suck to the babe at her breast? Oh, how long?
The child mother’s tears used to swallow before,
But mother’s eyes, nowadays, shed them no more.
Oh, dry are the eyes now, and empty the brain,
The heart well-nigh broken, the breath drawn with pain.
Yet ever, tho’ faintly, she calls out anew:
“Oh buy but two candles, good women, but two!”

In Hester Street stands on the pavement of stone
A small, orphaned basket, forsaken, alone.
Beside it is sitting a corpse, cold and stark:
The seller of candles—will nobody mark?
No, none of the passers have noticed her yet.
The rich ones, on feasting are busily set,
And such as are pious, you well may believe,
Have no time to spare on the gay Sabbath eve.
So no one has noticed and no one has seen.
And now comes the nightfall, and with it, serene,
The Princess, the Sabbath, from Heaven descends,
And all the gay throng to the synagogue wends.

Within, where they pray, all is cleanly and bright,
The cantor sings sweetly, they list with delight.
But why in a dream stands the tall chandelier,
As dim as the candles that gleam round a bier?
The candles belonged to the woman, you know,
Who died in the street but a short time ago.
The rich and the pious have brought them tonight,
For mother and child they have set them alight.
The rich and the pious their duty have done:
Her tapers are lighted who died all alone.
The rich and the pious are nobly behaved:
A body—what matters? But souls must be saved!

O synagogue lights, be ye witnesses bold
That mother and child died of hunger and cold
Where millions are squandered in idle display;
That men, all unheeded, must starve by the way.
Then hold back your flame, blessed lights, hold it fast!
The great day of judgment will come at the last.
Before the white throne, where imposture is vain,
Ye lights for the soul, ye’ll be lighted again!
And upward your flame there shall mount as on wings,
And damn the existing false order of things!

[The Pale Operator]

If but with my pen I could draw him,
With terror you’d look in his face;
For he, since the first day I saw him,
Has sat there and sewed in his place.

Years pass in procession unending,
And ever the pale one is seen,
As over his work he sits bending,
And fights with the soulless machine.

I feel, as I gaze at each feature,
Perspiring and grimy and wan,
It is not the strength of the creature,—
The will only, urges him on.

And ever the sweat-drops are flowing,
They fall o’er his thin cheek in streams,
They water the stuff he is sewing,
And soak themselves into the seams.

How long shall the wheel yet, I pray you,
Be chased by the pale artisan?
And what shall the ending be, say you?
Resolve the dark riddle who can!

I know that it cannot be reckoned,—
But one thing the future will show:
When this man has vanished, a second
Will sit in his place there and sew.

[The Beggar Family]

Within the court, before the judge,
There stand six wretched creatures,
They’re lame and weary, one and all,
With pinched and pallid features.
The father is a broken man,
The mother weak and ailing,
The little children, skin and bone,
With fear and hunger wailing.

Their sins are very great, and call
Aloud for retribution,
For their’s (maybe you guess!) the crime
Of hopeless destitution.
They look upon the judge’s face,
They know what judges ponder,
They know the punishment that waits
On those that beg and wander.

For months from justice they have fled
Along the streets and highways,
From farm to farm, from town to town,
Along the lanes and byways.
They’ve slept full oftentimes in jail,
They’re known in many places;
Yet still they live, for all the woe
That’s stamped upon their faces.

The woman’s chill with fear. The man
Implores the judge: “Oh tell us,
What will you? With our children small
Relentlessly expel us?
Oh let us be! We’ll sleep at night
In corners dark; the city
Has room for all! And some kind soul
Will give a crust in pity.

“For wife and children I will toil:
It cannot be much longer
(For God almighty is and good!)
Ere I for work am stronger.
Oh let us here with men remain,
Nor drive us any further!
Oh why our curses will you have,
And not our blessings rather!”

And now the sick man quails before
The judge’s piercing glances:
“No, only two of you shall go
This time and take your chances.
Your wife and you! The children four
You’ll leave, my man, behind you,
For them, within the Orphan’s Home,
Free places I will find you.”

The father’s dumb—the mother shrieks:
“My babes and me you’d sever?
If God there be, such cruel act
Shall find forgiveness never!
But first, oh judge, must you condemn
To death their wretched mother—
I cannot leave my children dear
With you or any other!

“I bore and nursed them, struggling still
To shelter and to shield them,
Oh judge, I’ll beg from door to door,
My very life-blood yield them!
I know you do not mean it, judge,
With us poor folk you’re jesting.
Give back my babes, and further yet
We’ll wander unprotesting.”

The judge, alas! has turned away,
The paper dread unrolled,
And useless all the mother’s grief,
The wild and uncontrolled.
More cruel can a sentence be
Than that which now is given?
Oh cursed the system ’neath whose sway
The human heart is riven!

[A Millionaire]

No, not from tuning-forks of gold
Take I my key for singing;
From Upper Seats no order bold
Can set my music ringing;
But groans the slave through sense of wrong,
And naught my voice can smother;
As flame leaps up, so leaps my song
For my oppressed brother.