With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread —

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch

She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”

“Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work — work — work,

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It’s Oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!

“Work — work — work

Till the brain begins to swim;

Work — work — work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in a dream!

“Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!

Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!

It is not linen you’re wearing out,

But human creatures’ lives!

Stitch — stitch — stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

“But why do I talk of Death?

That Phantom of grisly bone,

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own —

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fasts I keep;

Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!”

“Work — work — work!”

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread — and rags.

That shattered roof — and this naked ............