Working And Waiting

Suggested by Carl Müller's Cast of the Seamstress, at the Dusseldorf Gallery.
I
Look on that form, once fit for the sculptor!
Look on that cheek, where the roses have died!
Working and waiting have robbed from the artist
All that his marble could show for its pride.
Statue-like sitting
Alone, in the flitting
And wind-haunted shadows that people her hearth.
God protect all of us-
God shelter all of us
From the reproach of such scenes upon earth!
II
All the day long, and through the cold midnight,
Still the hot needle she wearily plies.
Haggard and w