Year: 1870

SIT In my sorrow a-weary, alone;
1 have nothing sweet to hope or remember,
For the Spring o tn year and of life has flown
'Tis the widest night o. the wild December,
And dark in my spirit and dark in my chamber.
1 sit and list to the steps in the street,
Going and coming, coming and going
And the winds at my shutter they blow and beat;
'Tis the middle of night and the clouds are
And the winds are bitterly beating and blowing.
I list to the steps as they come and go.
And my heart sinks down so low, so low;
No step is stayed from me by the showing,
Nor stayed by the wind so bitterly blowing
think of the ships that are out at sea,


or the wheels in tn cold black waters turning;
And my head is SICK and my heart is yearning,
AS think Of the wheels in the black waters


turning.


or the mother think by her sick baby's bed,
Away in her cabin as lonesome and dreary,
OF her patience so sweet, and her silence SO
With cries OF the hungry wolf hid in the prairie.
think of all things In the world that are sad;
or children in hOmesck and cOmfOrtless places;
OF prisons, Of dungeons of men that are mad;
or wicked, unwOmanly light in the faces
OF women that fortune has wrOnged with


disgraces.


think of a dear little sunIighted head,
That came where no hand of US all could deliver;
And craEed with the cruelest pain went to bed
Where the sheets were the foam-frette1 waves
Poor darling may God in his mercy forgive her.
The footsteps grow faint and more faint in the snow
I put back the curtain in very despairing;
The masts cr0ak and grOan as tn winds come and
And the light in the lighthouse all weirdIy is
Butwhat glory is this, in the gloom of rdespaiaring
see at the window just over the street,
A maid in the lamp-light her lOve-letter reading.
Her red mouth is smiling, her news is so sweet;
And the heart in my bosom is cured Of its
As look on the maiden her love-Ietter reading
She has finished the letter. and folding it, kisses,
And hides it-a secret too sacred to know;
And now in the heRrth-light she softly undresses :
A vision Of grace In the rOseate glow,
see her unbinding the brRids of her tresses
And now as she stOOps to the ribbon that fastens
Her slipper, they tumble DER shoulder and face
To gather them up in fillet Of lace;
And now she is gone, but in fancy trace
The lavendered linen updrawn, the round arm
Half sunk I'm the cOunterpane's brOidered roses,
Revealing the exquisite outline of form;
A willOwy wonder of grace that repOses
Beneath the white cOunterpane, heecy with roses.
I see the small hand lying over the heart,
Where the passionate dreams are so sweet in
The fair little fingers they trembIe and part.
As part to tn warm waves the leaves of the lily,
And they play with her hand like the waves


with the lily,
In white heecy flowers the queen o. the fowersi
What to her is the world with its bad, bitter


weather?
Wide she opens her arms-ah, her world is not


ours


And now she has closed them and clasped them


together


What to her is our world, with its clouds and


rough weather?
Hark! midnight! the winds and the SHOWS blow


and beat;


drop down the curtain and say to my SORROW,
Thank God for the window Just over the street;
Thank God there is always light whence to


borrow,


When darkness is darkest and Sorrow most


Sorrow.