VI. Must I grind in this dungeon for ever! Will the day of release never dawn? Come, spirits of light, and deliver My soul which I ventured to pawn; Oh, bear her away to the river That flows by the Sibylline lawn,— The sylph-haunted Sibylline lawn.
THE APPLE WOMAN.
(From life.)
I. She often comes, a not unwelcome guest, With her old face set in a marble smile, And bonnet ribbonless—it is her best,— And little cloak—and blesses you the while, And cracks her joke, ambitious to beguile Your heart to something human, Then sets her basket down—a little rest! The Apple Woman.
II. Her stock in trade that basket doth contain; It is her wholesale and her retail store, Her goods and chattels,—all that doth pertain To her estate, a daughter of the Poor; O ye who tread upon a velvet floor, Whose walls rich lights illumine, Wound not, with word or look of high disdain, The Apple Woman.
III. She is thy sister, jewelled Lady Clare, “My sister! fling this insult in my face?” How dare you then, when in the house of prayer, Utter, Our Father? difference of place Nulls not the consanguinity of race, And every creature human Is kin to that poor mother, shivering there, The Apple Woman.
IV. She sits upon the sidewalk in the cold, And with her scraggy hand, hard, shrunk and blue, And corded with the cordage of the old, She reaches forth a fameuse, sir, to you, And begs her ladyship will take one, too, And if you are a true man Your pence will out; she never thinks of gold, The Apple Woman.
V. She tells me—and I know she tells me true, “My good man,—God be kind!—had long been sick, And one cold morning when the snow-storm blew, He said, dear Bess, it grieves me to the quick To see you venture out,—give me my stick, I’ll come to you at gloamin,’ And bide you home,”—she paused, the rest I knew.— Poor Apple Woman!