We cheer the pale gold-diggers, Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, like sheep, with figures. VI. Be pitiful, O God! The curse of gold upon the land The lack of bread enforces; The rail-cars snort from strand to strand, Like more of Death's White horses: The rich preach 'rights' and 'future days,' And hear no angel scoffing, The poor die mute, with starving gaze On corn-ships in the offing. VII. Be pitiful, O God! We meet together at the feast, We stare down in the winecup, lest God's seraphs, do your voices sound VIII. Be pitiful, O God! We sit together, with the skies, The steadfast skies, above us, We look into each other's eyes, Be pitiful, O God! IX. We tremble by the harmless bed To see a light upon such brows, X. Be pitiful, O God! The happy children come to us, They ask us-' Was it thus, and thus, We cannot speak ;-we see anew And feel our mother's smile press through The kisses she is giving. Be pitiful, O God! ΧΙ. We pray together at the kirk The corpse is calm below our knee, XII. Be pitiful, O God! We leave the communing of men, And live alone, to live again With endless generations: Are we so brave ?—The sea and sky And, glassed therein, our spirits high Recoil from their own terrors. Be pitiful, O God! XIII. We sit on hills our childhood wist, Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding: The sun strikes through the farthest mist The city's spire to golden: The city's golden spire it was, When hope and health were strongest, But now it is the churchyard grass We look upon the longest. Be pitiful, O God! XIV. And soon all vision waxeth dull; We cry no more 'Be pitiful!' We have no strength for crying: No strength, no need. Then, soul of mine, Look up and triumph rather Lo, in the depth of God's Divine, The Son adjures the Father, BE PITIFUL, O GOD! A PORTRAIT. 'One name is Elizabeth.'-BRN JONSON. I WILL paint her as I see her. And her face is lily-clear, Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty Oval cheeks encoloured faintly, And a forehead fair and saintly, Face and figure of a child, Though too calm, you think, and tender, For the childhood you would lend her. |