To The Fortune Seeker

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!

Full soon will come the Reaper Black,
Cut thorns and flowers mark his track
Across Life's meadow blithe.
Oppose him, meet him as you will,
Old Time's behests he harkens still,
Unsparing wields his scythe.

A horrid mutiny by stealth
Breaks out,--of power, fame and wealth
Deserted you shall be!
The foam upon your lip is rife;
The last enigma now of Life
Shall Death resolve for thee.

You call for help--'tis all in vain!
What have you for your toil and pain,
What have you at the last?
Poor luckless hunter, are you dumb?
This way the cold pall-bearers come:
A beggar's soul has passed!

A little less, a little more !--
Look forth, look forth! without the door
There stands a robber old.
He'll force your ev'ry lock and spring,
And all your goods he'll take and fling
On Stygian waters cold.

Morris Rosenfeld

Morris Rosenfeld, born on December 28, 1862, and deceased on June 22, 1923, was a Yiddish poet known for his poignant and evocative poems depicting the struggles and hardships of Jewish immigrants in New York City's sweatshops in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work often highlighted themes of poverty, labor rights, and the immigrant experience. Rosenfeld's poetry remains significant for its historical and cultural commentary, capturing the essence of the Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Morris Rosenfeld

The Pale Operator

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

The Canary

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

Sfere

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

Want And I

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

English

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Want And I

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!
Avaunt, thou evil hag, beshrew thee!
God's curse! why seekest thou to find me?
Away to all black years behind me!

To torture me was thine endeavor,
My body from my soul to sever,
Of pride and courage to deprive me,
And into beggary to drive me.
Begone, where thousand devils burn--
Begone, nor evermore return!
Begone, most wretched thou of creatures,
And hide for aye thine hateful features!
--Beloved, ope the door in pity!

No friend have I in all the city
Save thee, then open to my call!
The night is bleak, the snowflakes fall.
...

Morris Rosenfeld

The Wolf And The Hunter.

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Thou lust of gain, - foul fiend, whose evil eyes
Regard as nought the blessings of the skies,
Must I for ever battle thee in vain?
How long demandest thou to gain
The meaning of my lessons plain?
Will constant getting never cloy?
Will man ne'er slacken to enjoy?
Haste, friend; thou hast not long to live:
Let me the precious word repeat,
And listen to it, I entreat;
A richer lesson none can give -
The sovereign antidote for sorrow -
ENJOY! - 'I will.' - But when? - 'To-morrow. - '
Ah! death may take you on the way,
Why not enjoy, I ask, to-day?
Lest envious fate your hopes ingulf,
As once it served the hunter and the wolf.

The former, with his fatal bow,
A noble deer had laid full low:
A fawn approach'd, and quickl...

Jean de La Fontaine

From Dawn to Dawn

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.

Morris Rosenfeld

Crotalus

No life in earth, or air, or sky;
The sunbeams, broken silently,
On the bared rocks around me lie,

Cold rocks with half-warmed lichens scarred,
And scales of moss; and scarce a yard
Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.

Lost in a cleft! Tis but a stride
To reach it, thrust its roots aside,
And lift it on thy stick astride!

Yet stay! That moment is thy grace!
For round thee, thrilling air and space,
A chattering terror fills the place!

A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the dead Valley! By yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir!

The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground,
On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!

The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,
Halts, breathless, on ...

Bret Harte

Despair

No rest--not one day in the seven for me?
Not one, from the maddening yoke to be free?
Not one to escape from the boss on the prowl,
His sinister glance and his furious growl,
The cry of the foreman, the smell of the shop,--
To feel for one moment the manacles drop?
--'Tis rest then you want, and you fain would forget?
To rest and oblivion they'll carry you yet.

The flow'rs and the trees will have withered ere long,
The last bird already is ending his song;
And soon will be leafless and shadeless the bow'rs...
I long, oh I long for the perfume of flow'rs!
To feel for a moment ere stripped are the trees,
In meadow lands open, the breath of the breeze.
--You long for the meadow lands breezy and fair?
O, soon enough others will carry you there.

Morris Rosenfeld

The Prospector

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at ...

Pat O'Cotter