A Wish

Great dignity ever attends great grief,     And silently walks beside it;     And I always know when I see such woe     That Invisible Helpers guide it.     And I know deep sorrow is like a tide,     It cannot ever be flowing;     The high-water mark in the night and the dark -     Then dawn, and the outward going.     But the people who pull at my heart-strings hard     Are the ones whom destiny hurries     Through commonplace ways to the end of their days,     And pesters with paltry worries.     The peddlers who trudge with a budget of wares     To the door that is slammed unkindly;     The vendor who stands with his shop in his hands     Where the hastening hosts pass blindly;     The woman who holds in her poor flat purse     The price of her rent-room only,     While her starved eye feeds on the comfort she needs     To brighten the lot that is lonely;     The man in the desert of endless work,     Unsoftened by islands of leisure;     And the children who toil in the dust and the soil,     While their little hearts cry for pleasure;     The people who labour, and scrimp, and save,     At the call of some thankless duty,     And carefully hide, with a mien of pride,     Their ravening hunger for beauty;     These ask no pity, and seek no aid,     But the thought of them somehow is haunting;     And I wish I might fling at their feet everything     That I know in their hearts they are wanting.