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| IN Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post | |
| There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost. | |
| Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead | |
| And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red. | |
| But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween, | 5 |
| May hardly the cause of their fading have been. | |
| Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see, | |
| A skeleton infant she holds on her knee. | |
| It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps, | |
| But soon at her cry it awakens and weeps: | 10 |
| “Two cents my good woman, three candles will buy, | |
| As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!” | |
| Tho’ few are her wares, and her basket is small | |
| She earns her own living by these, when at all, | |
| She’s there with her baby in wind and in rain, | 15 |
| In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain; | |
| She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack, | |
| No home and no food, and no cloak to her back; | |
| She’s kirthless and kinless—one friend at the most | |
| And that one is silent: the telegraph post | 20 |
| She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still | |
| Altho’ she is wretched, forsaken and ill | |
| She cries Sabbath candles to those who come nigh | |
| And all that she pleads is, that people will buy. | |
| To honor the sweet Sabbath, each one | 25 |
| With joy in his heart to the market has gone | |
| To shops and to pushcarts they hurriedly go | |
| But who for the poor wretched woman will care? | |
| A few of her candles you think they will take. | |
| They seek the meat patties, the fish and the cake. | 30 |
| She holds forth a hand with a pitiful cry; | |
| “Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy!” | |
| But no one has listened, and no one has heard; | |
| Her voice is so weak, that it fails at each word. | |
| Perchance the poor mite in her lap understood, | 35 |
| She hears mother’s crying—but where is the good? | |
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| I pray you, how long will she sit there and cry | |
| Her candles so feebly to all that pass by? | |
| How long will it be, do you think, ere her breath | |
| Gives out in the horrible struggle with Death? | 40 |
| How long will this frail one in mother-love strong | |
| Give suck to the babe at her breast? Oh, how long? | |
| The child mother’s tears used to swallow before, | |
| But mother’s eyes, nowadays, shed them no more. | |
| Oh, dry are the eyes now, and empty the brain, | 45 |
| The heart well-nigh broken, the breath drawn with pain. | |
| Yet ever, tho’ faintly, she calls out anew; | |
| “Oh buy but two candles, good woman but two!” | |
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| In Hester Street stands on the pavement of stone, | |
| A small orphaned basket, forsaken, alone. | 50 |
| Besides it is sitting a corpse, cold and stark, | |
| The seller of candles—will nobody mark? | |
| No, none of the passers have noticed her yet, | |
| The rich ones on feasting are busily set, | |
| And such as are pious, you well may believe | 55 |
| Have no time to spare on the gay Sabbath eve. | |
| So no one had noticed and no one has seen, | |
| And now comes the night-fall and with it serene, | |
| The Princess, the Sabbath, from Heaven descends, | |
| And all the gay throng to the synagogue wends. | 60 |
| Within where they pray, all is cleanly and bright; | |
| The cantor sings sweetly, they list with delight. | |
| But why in a dream stands the tall chandelier, | |
| As dim as the candles that gleam round a bier? | |
| The candles belonged to the woman you know | 65 |
| Who died in the street but a short time ago. | |
| The rich and the pious have brought them tonight | |
| For mother and child they have set them alight. | |
| The rich and the pious their duty have done, | |
| Her tapers are lighted who died all alone. | 70 |
| The rich and the pious are nobly behaved: | |
| A body—what matters? But souls must be saved! | |
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| O synagogue lights, be ye witnesses bold, | |
| That mother and child died of hunger and cold | |
| Where millions are squandered in idle display; | 75 |
| That men all unheeded, must starve by the way. | |
| Then hold back your flame, blessed lights hold it fast! | |
| The great day of judgment will come at last. | |
| Before the white throne, where imposture is vain, | |
| Ye lights for the soul, ye’ll be lighted again! | 80 |
| And upward your flame there shall mount as on wings, | |
| And damn the existing false order of things. | |
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