Alice Cary

I sit in my sorrow a-weary, alone; I have nothing sweet to hope or remember, For the spring o’ th’ year and of life has flown; ’Tis the wildest night o’ the wild December, And dark in my spirit and dark in my chamber. I sit and list to the steps in the street, Going and coming, and coming and going, And the winds at my shutter they blow and beat; ’Tis the middle of night and the clouds are snowing; And the winds are bitterly beating and blowing. I list to the steps as they come and go, And list to the winds that are beating and blowing, And my heart sinks down so low, so low; No step is stayed from me by the snowing, Nor stayed by the wind so bitterly blowing. I think of the ships that are out at sea, Of the wheels in th’ cold, black waters turning; Not one of the ships beareth news to me, And my head is sick, and my heart is yearning, As I think of the wheels in the black waters turning. Of the mother I think, by her sick baby’s bed, Away in her cabin as lonesome and dreary, And little and low as the flax-breaker’s shed; Of her patience so sweet, and her silence so weary, With cries of the hungry wolf hid in the prairie. I think of all things in the world that are sad; Of children in homesick and comfortless places; Of prisons, of dungeons, of men that are mad; Of wicked, unwomanly light in the faces Of women that fortune has wronged with disgraces. I think of a dear little sun-lighted head, That came where no hand of us all could deliver; And crazed with the cruelest pain went to bed Where the sheets were the foam-fretted waves of the river; Poor darling! may God in his mercy forgive her. The footsteps grow faint and more faint in the snow; I put back the curtain in very despairing; The masts creak and groan as th’ winds come and go; And the light in the light-house all weirdly is flaring; But what glory is this, in the gloom of despairing! I see at the window just over the street, A maid in the lamplight her love-letter reading. Her red mouth is smiling, her news is so sweet; And the heart in my bosom is cured of its bleeding, As I look on the maiden her love-letter reading. She has finished the letter, and folding it, kisses, And hides it — a secret too sacred to know; And now in the hearth-light she softly undresses: A vision of grace in the roseate glow, I see her unbinding the braids of her tresses. And now as she stoops to the ribbon that fastens Her slipper, they tumble o’er shoulder and face; And now, as she patters in bare feet, she hastens To gather them up in a fillet of lace; And now she is gone, but in fancy I trace The lavendered linen updrawn, the round arm Half sunk in the counterpane’s broidered roses, Revealing the exquisite outline of form; A willowy wonder of grace that reposes Beneath the white counterpane, fleecy with roses. I see the small hand lying over the heart, Where the passionate dreams are so sweet in their sally; The fair little fingers they tremble and part, As part to th’ warm waves the leaves of the lily, And they play with her hand like the waves with the lily. In white fleecy flowers, the queen o’ the flowers! What to her is the world with its bad, bitter weather? Wide she opens her arms — ah, her world is not ours! And now she has closed them and clasped them together — What to her is our world, with its clouds and rough weather? Hark! midnight! the winds and the snows blow and beat; I drop down the curtain and say to my sorrow, Thank God for the window just over the street; Thank God there is always a light whence to borrow When darkness is darkest, and sorrow most sorrow.

Have you been in our wild west country? then You have often had to pass Its cabins lying like birds’ nests in The wild green prairie grass. Have you seen the women forget their wheels As they sat at the door to spin— Have you seen the darning fall away From their fingers worn and thin, As they asked you news of the villages Where they were used to be, Gay girls at work in the factories With their lovers gone to sea! Ah, have you thought of the bravery That no loud praise provokes— Of the tragedies acted in the lives Of poor, hard-working folks! Of the little more, and the little more Of hardship which they press Upon their own tired hands to make The toil for the children less: And not in vain; for many a lad Born to rough work and ways, Strips off his ragged coat, and makes Men clothe him with their praise.

I am weary of the working, Weary of the long day’s heat; To thy comfortable bosom, Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet? Weary of the long, blind struggle For a pathway bright and high,— Weary of the dimly dying Hopes that never quite all die. Weary searching a bad cipher For a good that must be meant; Discontent with being weary,— Weary with my discontent. I am weary of the trusting Where my trusts but torments prove; Wilt thou keep faith with me? wilt thou Be my true and tender love? I am weary drifting, driving Like a helmless bark at sea; Kindly, comfortable spirit, Wilt thou give thyself to me? Give thy birds to sing me sonnets? Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss? And thy mossy rocks to stand for The memorials of our bliss? I in reverence will hold thee, Never vexed with jealous ills, Though thy wild and wimpling waters Wind about a thousand hills.

‘Be not among wine-bibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.’ Proverbs, 23: 20, 21 I’ll tell you two fortunes, my fine little lad, For you to accept or refuse. The one of them good, and the other one bad; Now hear them, and say which you choose! I see by my gift, within reach of your hand, A fortune right fair to behold; A house and a hundred good acres of land, With harvest fields yellow as gold. I see a great orchard, the boughs hanging down With apples of russet and red; I see droves of cattle, some white and brown, But all of them sleek and well-fed. I see doves and swallows about the barn doors, See the fanning-mill whirling so fast, See men that are threshing the wheat on the floors; And now the bright picture is past! And I see, rising dismally up in the place Of the beautiful house and the land, A man with a fire-red nose on his face, And a little brown jug in his hand! Oh! if you beheld him, my lad, you would wish That he were less wretched to see; For his boot-toes, they gape like the mouth of a fish, And his trousers are out at the knee! In walking he staggers, now this way, now that, And his eyes they stand out like a bug’s, And he wears an old coat and a battered-in hat, And I think that the fault is the jug’s! For our text says the drunkard shall come to be poor, And drowsiness clothes men with rags; And he doesn’t look much like a man, I am sure, Who has honest hard cash in his bags. Now which will you choose? to be thrifty and snug, And to be right side up with your dish; Or to go with your eyes like the eyes of a bug, And your shoes like the mouth of a fish!

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd, And Summer from her golden collar slips And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud, Save when by fits the warmer air deceives, And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower, She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves, And tries the old tunes over for an hour. The wind, whose tender whisper in the May Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove, Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day And makes his cold and unsuccessful love. The rose has taken off her tire of red— The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost, And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost. The robin, that was busy all the June, Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough, Catching our hearts up in his golden tune, Has given place to the brown cricket now. The very cock crows lonesomely at morn— Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides— Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides. Shut up the door: who loves me must not look Upon the withered world, but haste to bring His lighted candle, and his story-book, And live with me the poetry of Spring.