Favorite Poems

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J.R. Osgood, 1877 - 96 pages

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Page 62 - With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags Plying her needle and thread — Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich ! She sang this "Song of the Shirt.
Page 78 - Our very hopes belied our fears — Our fears our hopes belied ; We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died. For when the morn came, dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed ; she had Another morn than ours!
Page 67 - Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet. With the sky above my head. And the grass beneath my feet ; For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal!
Page 60 - Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair! Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently, — kindly, — Smooth, and compose them; And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly! Dreadfully staring Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fixed on futurity.
Page 59 - Where the lamps quiver So far in the river, With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night. The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river: Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurl'd Anywhere, anywhere, Out of the world!
Page 79 - Ines had always, for me, an inexpressible charm : O saw ye not fair Ines ? She's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down. And rob the world of rest...
Page 66 - Work — work — work! My labor never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread — and rags, That shattered roof — and this naked floor • A table — a broken chair — And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there!
Page 57 - Whilst the wave constantly Drips from her clothing; Take her up instantly, Loving, not loathing. Touch her not scornfully; Think of her mournfully, Gently and humanly; Not of the stains of her, All that remains of her Now is pure womanly. Make no deep scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and undutiful: Past all dishonour Death has left on her Only the beautiful.
Page 13 - TWAS in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school : There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool.
Page 14 - God, could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp ! " Then leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took; Now up the mead, then down the...

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