“I yield! Oh, Earth, thou hast thy charms, I grant it freely now,
In winter’s sterner hours, as when the spring-buds deck thy brow,
So, a truce to idle grieving o’er summer beauties fled,
Our northern winters we’ll accept with grateful hearts instead.”
[RICH AND POOR.]
’Neath the radiance faint of the starlit sky
The gleaming snow-drifts lay wide and high;
O’er hill and dell stretched a mantle white,
The branches glittered with crystal bright;
But the winter wind’s keen icy breath
Was merciless, numbing and chill as death.
It clamored around a handsome pile—
Abode of modern wealth and style
Where smiling guests had gathered to greet
Its master’s birth-day with welcome meet;
And clink of glasses and loud gay tone,
With song and jest, drowned the wind’s wild moan.
Yet, farther on, another abode
Its pillared portico proudly showed.
From its windows high flowed streams of light,
Mingling with outside shadows of night;
And the strains of music rapid, gay—
Told well how within sped the hours away.
Steal but one glance at that magic scene,
And long you will spell-bound gaze, I ween,
On mirrors and flowers, and paintings old,
And side-boards heaped with vessels of gold;
Proud, stately men and women most fair,
Glitt’ring in toilets, marvellous, rare.
Sharp grief may torture many a heart,
But its pangs are hid with wond’rous art;
Breasts may harbor hate, envy or guile,
But all is concealed ’neath the studied smile;
And carelessly gay is each well-trained face,
As the dancers flash past with magic grace.
Not far away, down yon narrow lane,
Where poverty herds with guilt and pain,
Are homes where the wind finds entrance free,
Searching each cranny with savage glee,
And freezing the blood of those within,
Through their wretched garments, scant and thin.
List to the music that meets the ear!
No sweet strains of Strauss will greet you here,
But the moan of sickness, the feeble wail
Of suff’ring childhood—of mothers pale,
The groan of despair, or, alas, still worse!
The blasphemous jest, or fierce, deep curse.
See! on yon board is their banquet spread,
Coarse broken remnants of mouldy bread;
No cheerful flame in the fire-place bare
To temper the cold of the biting air,
Or the chill of the snow on the rotting floor,
Drifting beneath the ill-closed door.