Works

My tailor's shears I scorned then;
I strove for something higher:
To edit news--live by the pen--
The pen that shall not tire!

The pen, that was my humble slave,
Has now enslaved its master;...

I


The summer is over!
'Tis windy and chilly.
The flowers are dead in the dale.
All beauty has faded,
The rose and the lily
In death-sleep lie withered and pale.
...

I asked of my Muse, had she any objection
To laughing with me,--not a word for reply!
You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection,--
And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?
...

Within the court, before the judge,
There stand six wretched creatures,
They're lame and weary, one and all,
With pinched and pallid features.
The father is a broken man,
The mother weak and ailing,...

The free canary warbles
In leafy forest dell:
Who feels what rapture thrills her,
And who her joy can tell?

The sweet canary warbles
Where wealth and splendor dwell:...

In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post,
There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost.
Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead,
And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red....

In the hills' embraces holden,
In a valley filled with glooms,
Lies a cemetery olden,
Strewn with countless mould'ring tombs.

Ancient graves o'erhung with mosses,...

When the world was first created
By th' all-wise Eternal One,
Asked he none for help or counsel,--
Simply spake, and it was done!

Made it for his own good pleasure,
Shaped it on his own design,...

Little candles glistening,
Telling those are listening
Legends manifold,
Many a little story,
Tales of blood and glory
Of the days of old.

As I watch you flicker,
As I list you bicker,...

The wind is keen, the frost is dread,
Toward the icy water,
By aunt and mother forth is led
The fisher's lovely daughter.

"Dive in, dive in, my child, with haste!
There's naught whereon to ponder,...

May has come from out the showers,
Sun and splendor in her train.
All the grasses and the flowers
Waken up to life again.
Once again the leaves do show,
And the meadow blossoms blow,...

Fair summer is here, glad summer is here!
O hark! 'tis to you I am singing:
The sun is all gold in a heaven of blue,
The birds in the forest are trilling for you,
The flies 'mid the grasses are winging;...

If but with my pen I could draw him,
With terror you'd look in his face;
For he, since the first day I saw him,
Has sat there and sewed in his place.

Years pass in procession unending,...

Now the last, long rays of sunset
To the tree-tops are ascending,
And the ash-gray evening shadows
Weave themselves around the earth.

On the crest of yonder mountain,...

O Misery of mine, no other
In faithfulness can match with thee,
Thou more than friend, and more than brother,
The only thing that cares for me!

Where'er I turn, are unkind faces,...

A little more, a little less!--
O shadow-hunters pitiless,
Why then so eager, say!
What'er you leave the grave will take,
And all you gain and all you make,
It will not last a day!
...

Who's there? who's there? who was it tried
To force the entrance I've denied?
An 'twere a friend, I'd gladly borne it,
But no--'twas Want! I could have sworn it.
I heard thy voice, old witch, I know thee!...

Well, say you the world is a chamber of sleep,
And life but a sleeping and dreaming?
Then I too would dream: and would joyously reap
The blooms of harmonious seeming;...

(To a Young Girl)


Say whither, whither, pretty one?
The hour is young at present!
How hushed is all the world around!
Ere dawn--the streets hold not a sound.
O whither, whither do you run?...