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.
And thus the end comes swift and sure...
Thus life itself must leave me;
For what can these my brothers poor
In compensation give me,
Save tears for ev’ry tear and sigh?—
(For they are rich in anguish).
A millionaire of tears am I,
And mid my millions languish.