Fetch on your scissors, your slender blade--
To make them brilliant and sharp's my trade;
To every door-step my grindstone comes,
And on and ever it strolls and hums.
I and my grindstone, we wander by,
And no one asks me from whence come I;
How poor I am, no one cares to know,
None care to hear of my spirit's woe.
I'm ground by sorrow both day and night,
And yet I never am polished bright;
I'm ground by hunger, and though it pales
The face, to sharpen the wit it fails.
I'm ground by grief, but the work is ill,
For notched and rusty my heart is, still.
The wheel is whirling, the stone has grit--
Fetch on your steel--shall I sharpen it?
