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?