Labor and the Angel

Chapter 42: WORDS AFTER MUSIC.

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About This Book

A collection of lyrical and narrative poems that intertwine rural and natural imagery with meditations on work, love, and moral responsibility. Poems depict harvests, seasonal change, and small lives—often pairing intimate domestic scenes with broader social observation—while recurring angelic and spiritual motifs frame labor as both suffering and sacred duty. Several sequences offer seasonal songs and short dramatic narratives; others turn to elegiac or reflective moods, addressing poverty, endurance, consolation, and the consolatory powers of love and service. The tone ranges from vivid sensory description to moral and communal critique, united by plain diction and musical cadence.

WORDS AFTER MUSIC.

Where go all the melodies fair,
They that flow and fade in air?
Was their beauty all foredone?
(Ah, no—no!)
Pulse and cadence truth did tell,
Vowed to music’s magic spell,
Passionate and ineffable.

Where do all the roses go,
They that die before the snow?
Was their beauty all forsworn?
(Ah, no—no!)
Flush and odor vowed aright,
When they promised rare delight,
Perennial and exquisite.

Fragile flowers and melodies
Claim a dual paradise,
Beauty is not feof to death;
(Ah, no—no!)
Beauty lives in essence free,
In the inner heart we see
Beauty’s immortality.

THIS BOOK IS PRINTED DURING OCTOBER 1898 BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS