Great work, great pain, and greater joy, in life.
She found such work as brainless slaves might do,
By day and night, long labor, never through;
Such pain—no language can her pain reveal;
It had no limit but her power to feel;
Such joy—life left in her sad soul’s employ
Neither the hope nor memory of joy.
Helpless, she died, with one despairing cry,—
“I thought it good; how could I tell the lie?”
And answered Nature, merciful and stern,