Symphony No. 1, Versuch eines Requiems

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,
    and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men,
    at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
    neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband -- I see
    the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love,
    attempted to be hid -- I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny --
    I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea -- I observe the sailors casting lots
    who shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons
    upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these -- All the meanness and agony without end,
    I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial, misery you give to us all,,
And thought of him I love.

Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears,
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand,
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
 ...