Women must weep :: :: University of Virginia Library

Alas, for the human cry and curse,
Alas, for the human curse and cry,
For the rich who empty out their purse,
To entrap a victim coy and shy,
That essays to fly,
As a creature which its wound would nurse,
And away from spy
Would a refuge seek, and finds a worse
Than the nodding plumes and sable hearse,
In a human sty!
Alas, for the hands that souls asperse,
And with sackcloth veil the sky!

Oh, among the noises of the night,
And the darkness deepest at the noon,
The grim sound that tells of grimmer sight,
That goes up to eclipsed sun and moon,
In the rosy June,
As in winter's gaunt and grisly light
Is the dying tune,
As of warriors beaten in the fight,
But refusing still to turn in flight,
Though the spirit soon
Will depart in proud unconquer'd might,
Yet would scorn an earthly boon.

There are wailing child and weeping maid,
There are figures once so neat and nice,
With the dainty flower and pretty braid,
But now warp'd and wither'd by the vice,
Which, as Arctic ice,
Has in frozen beds of bondage laid,

And not once or twice—
Which the sentence unrepeal'd has said,
For which time affords no balm or aid;
There are rattling dice,
And the moan of virgins blackly paid
For the barren sacrifice.

Ah, the sigh of stricken brutes is dread,
And the sob that tolls the loosening tie,
And the stifled, starving howl for bread,
Which to boasting Progress gives the lie,—
If we murmur “Fie!”
But was never tale of sufferers read,
Who in sorrow lie,
When the palsied arm in prayer is spread,
As the tale of that dishonour'd head,
For which devils vie;
As the cry of the woman, worse than dead,
Who is pierced and cannot die.