178
Wintah time hit comin’ 241
With sombre mien, the evening gray 123
With what thou gavest me, O Master 276
Within a London garret high 96
Woman’s sho’ a cur’ous critter, an’ dey ain’t no doubtin’ dat 170

Yes, my ha’t ’s ez ha’d ez stone 62
Yesterday I held your hand 257
You ask why I am sad to-day 220
You bid me hold my peace 286
You kin talk about yer anthems 53
You’ll be wonderin’ whut’s de reason 131
Your presence like a benison to me 266
Your spoken words are roses fine and sweet 270

LYRICS OF LOWLY LIFE

ERE SLEEP COMES DOWN TO SOOTHE THE WEARY EYES

  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
    Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought
  The magic gold which from the seeker flies;
    Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought,
  And make the waking world a world of lies,—­
    Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn,
  That say life’s full of aches and tears and sighs,—­
    Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn,
  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.

  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
    How all the griefs and heart-aches we have known
  Come up like pois’nous vapors that arise
    From some base witch’s caldron, when the crone,
  To work some potent spell, her magic plies. 
    The past which held its share of bitter pain,
  Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise,
    Comes up, is lived and suffered o’er again,
  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.

  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
    What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room;
  What ghostly shades in awe-creating guise
    Are bodied forth within the teeming gloom. 
  What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries,
    And pangs of vague inexplicable pain
  That pay the spirit’s ceaseless enterprise,
    Come thronging through the chambers of the brain,
  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.

  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
    Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? 
  Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies
    Tends her far course to lands of mystery? 
  To lands unspeakable—­beyond surmise,
    Where shapes unknowable to being spring,
  Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies
    Much wearied with the spirit’s journeying,
  Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.