The Children of the Poor
1
People who have no children can be hard: . . .
1
People who have no children can be hard: . . .
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations, . . .
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
. . .
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
. . .
A man steps out of sunlight,
sunlight that streams like grace,
. . .
O wearisome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity;
. . .
We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.
. . .
Over the edge of the purple down,
Where the single lamplight gleams,
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town . . .
I once hit clothespins
for the Chicago Cubs.
I'd go out after supper . . .
The morning comes, and thickening clouds prevail,
Hanging like curtains all the horizon round,
Or overhead in heavy stillness sail; . . .