By sordid labors at the loom

Must earn a poor, precarious bread.

Those feet that never touched the ground,

Till musk or camphor strewed the way,

Now bare and swoll'n with many a wound,

Must struggle through the miry clay.

Those radiant cheeks are veiled in woe,

A shower descends from every eye,

And not a starting tear can flow,

That wakes not an attending sigh.