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 rentTorn 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 filled 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?
