Works

Pale-faced is he, as in the door
He stands and trembles visibly,--
With diffidence approaches me,
And says: "Dear editor,

"Since write you must, in prose or rhyme,
Expose my master's knavery,...

Once again my songs I sing thee,
Now the spell is broken;
Brothers, yet again I bring thee
Songs of love the token.
Of my joy and of my sorrow
Gladly, sadly bringing;--...

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?
...

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....

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!
...