Eight o'clock strikes!

The short day's sped,—

My Day of Rest! That beating in my head

Hammers on still, like coffin-taps. He likes,

Our lynx-eyed chief, to see us brisk and trim

On Monday mornings; and though brains may swim,

And breasts sink sickeningly with nameless pain,

He cannot feel the faintness and the strain,

And what are they to him?

This morning's sun peeped in

Invitingly, as though to win

My footsteps fieldwards, just one day in seven!

The thought of hedgerows was like opening heaven,

And the stray sunray's gleam,

Threading the dingy blind,

Seemed part of a sweet dream,

For in our sleep the Fates are sometimes kind.

"Come out!" it said, "but not with weary tread,

And feet of lead,

The long, mud-cumbered, cold, accustomed way,

For the great Shop is shuttered close to-day,

And you awhile are free!"

Free? With a chain of iron upon my heart,

That drags me down, and makes the salt tears start!

Oh, that inexorable weariness

That through the enfeebled flesh lays crushing stress

On the young spirit! Young? There is no youth

For such as I. It dies, in very truth,

At the first touch of the taskmaster's hand.

A doctrine hard for you to understand,

Gay sisters of the primrose path,

Whose only chain is as a flowery band.

The toil that outstays nature hath

A palsying power, a chilling force

Which freezes youth at its fresh source.

Only the Comus wand

Of an unhallowed Pleasure offers such

Freedom, and with pollution in its touch.

The languid lift

Of head from pillow tells us the good gift

Of Sabbath rest is more than half in vain.

Tired! Tired! In flesh, bone, brain,

Heart, fancy, pulse, and nerve!

Such is our doom who stand and serve

The unrewarding public, thoughtless they

Of slaves whose souls they slay!

Oh, that long standing—standing—standing yet!

With the flesh sick, the inmost soul a-fret,

Pale, pulseless patiences, our very sex,

That should be a protection, one more load

To lade, and chafe, and vex.

No tired ox urged to tramping by the goad

Feels a more mutely-maddening weariness

Than we white, black-garbed spectral girls who stand

Stonily smiling on while ladies grand,

Easily seated, idly turn and toss

The samples; and our Watcher, 'neath the gloss

Of courtly smugness glaring menace, stalks

About us, creaking cruelty as he walks.

Stand! Stand! Still stand!

Clenched teeth and clutching hand,

Swift blanching cheek, and twitching muscle, tell

To those who know, what we know all too well,

Ignored by Fashion, coldly mocked by Trade.

Are we not for the sacrifice arrayed

In dainty vesture? Pretty, too, they say

Male babblers, whom our sufferings and poor pay

Might shock, could they but guess

Trim figure and smart dress

Cover and hide, from all but doctor-ken,

Disease and threatening death. Oh! men, men, men!

You bow, smile, flatter—aught but understand!

Long hours lay lethal hand

Upon our very vitals. Seats might save

From an untimely grave,

Hundreds of harried, inly anguished girls;

You see—their snow-girt throats and neatly-ordered curls!

Out to the green fields? Nay,

This all too fleeting day

To rest is dedicate. But not the rest

Of brightened spirit, and of lightened breast.

The dull, dead, half-inanimate leaden crouch

Of sheer exhaustion on this shabby couch

Is all my week's repose.

Read? But the tired eyes close,

The book from nerveless fingers drops;

Almost the slow heart stops.

But the clock halts not on its restless round.

Weariness shudders at the whirring sound,

As the sharp strike declares

Swift to its closing wears

One more of those brief interludes from toil

Which leave us still the labour-despot's spoil,

Slaves of long hours and unrelaxing strain,

Unstrengthened and unsolaced, soon again

To tread the round, and lift the lengthening chain;

Stand—till hysteria lays its hideous clutch

On our girl-hearts, or epilepsy's touch

Thrills through tired nerves and palsied brain.

Again—again—again!

How long? Till Death, upon its kindly quest,

Gives a true Day of Rest!

Solly had a little Lamb,