A Leaf from the Devil’s Jest-Book

Beside the sewing-table chained and bent, They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud— For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud; They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rent Torn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went, And left them alone with Time; and now if bowed With burdens they should sob and cry aloud,— Wondering, the rich would look from their content.

And so this glimmering life at last recedes In unknown, endless depths beyond recall; And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds, If here at the end of ages this is all— A white face floating in the whirling ball, A dead face plashing in the river reeds?