Weeping.
WEEPING? Yes! few eyes are tearless,
Gloom is spreading over all,
See the lordly mansion cheerless;
View despair in homesteads small.
Weeping lovers meet in sadness,
Weeping fathers, weeping wives,
Children, too, forget their gladness;
Poverty chills all their lives.
War, and death, and desolatoion,
Ever saunter arm-in-arm,
Mists and fogs o’erspread the nation;
Life seems losing every charm.
Weeping singers sing of sorrow
In the streets of every town;
Those at home can beg, or borrow,
They must keep gaunt hunger down.
Weeping bandsmen blow for hours;
Miles on miles afar they roam;
Frost and hail, and chilling showers
Check them not – they play for home.
God of Hosts! look down upon us,
Help the sorrowing sons of toil;
Shower thy blessings gently on us,
Or bid us kiss the rod and smile.
If it please thee, gracious Father,
Stay the war and grant us peace;
Thou, who mak’st the tempest gather,
Thou can’st bid fierce passions cease.
Then shall weeping turn to gladness,
And ourselves the better be;
Joy shall yet come forth from sadness;
Hope shall spring from misery.
ABE JONES.
Liverpool, 17th November, 1862.
Liverpool, 17th November, 1862.