Margaret Widdemer

I have known great gold Sorrows: Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully Through the slow-pacing morrows: I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing Dim endless voices cried of suffering Vibrant and far in broken litany: Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-— All things most tragical, most fair, Have still encompassed me . . . I dance where in the screaming market-place The dusty world that watches buys and sells, With painted merriment upon my face, Whirling my bells, Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery. I have known great gold Sorrows . . . Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones, If it shall make them merry, and forget That grief shall rise and set With the unchanging, unforgetting suns Of their relentless morrows?

The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces, Begging of Life for Joy! I saw the little daughters of the poor, Tense from the long day's working, strident, gay, Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled A hideous flushed beggar at the door, Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed, Complacent in his profitable mask. They mocked his horror, but they gave to him From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand Covered by darkness, to the luring voice Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings, Of silks, of feathers, bought—so cheap!—with just Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant For Beauty, Laughter, Passion, that is Life: (A frock of satin for an hour's shame, A coat of fur for two days' servitude; “And the clothes last,” the thought runs on, within The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days; “Who cares or knows after the hour is done?”) —Poor little beggars at Life's door for Joy! The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible, Complacent in the marketable mask That earned his comforts—and they gave to him! But ah, the little painted, wistful faces Questioning Life for Joy!