I bend o'er the wheel at my sewing;
I'm spent; and I'm hungry for rest;
No curse on the master bestowing,-
No hell-fires within me are glowing,-
Tho' pain flares its fires in my breast.
I mar the new cloth with my weeping,
And struggle to hold back the tears;
A fever comes over me, sweeping
My veins; and all through me goes creeping
A host of black terrors and fears.
The wounds of the old years ache newly;
The gloom of the shop hems me in;
But six o'clock signals come duly:
O, freedom seems mine again, truly…
Unhindered I haste from the din.
* * * * *
Now home again, ailing and shaking,
With tears that are blinding my eyes,
With bones that are creaking and breaking,
Unjoyful of rest… merely taking
A seat; hoping never to rise.
I gaze round me: none for a greeting!
By Life for the moment unpressed,
My poor wife lies sleeping-and beating
A lip-tune in dream false and fleeting,
My child mumbles close to her breast.
I look on them, weeping in sorrow,
And think: “When the Reaper has come-
When finds me no longer the morrow-
What aid then?-from whom will they borrow
The crust of dry bread and the home?
“What harbors that morrow,” I wonder,
“For them when the breadwinner's gone?
When sudden and swift as the thunder
The bread-bond is broken asunder,
And friend in the world there is none.”
A numbness my brain is o'ertaking…
To sleep for a moment I drop:
Then start!… In the east light is breaking!-
I drag myself, ailing and aching,
Again to the gloom of the shop.
From Dawn To Dawn
Morris Rosenfeld
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Poem topics: child, dream, freedom, friend, life, light, never, pain, poor, sleep, sorrow, wife, world, rise, brain, struggle, broken, start, clock, thunder, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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