The Poetry Corner

From Dawn to Dawn

By Morris Rosenfeld

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.