Faces

I look into the faces of the people passing by,
The glad ones and the sad ones, and the lined with misery,
And I wonder why the sorrow or the twinkle in the eye;
But the pale and weary faces are the ones that trouble me.

I saw a face this morning, and time was when it was fair;
Youth had brushed it bright with color in the distant long ago,
And the goddess of the lovely once had kept a temple there,
But the cheeks were pale with grieving and the eyes were dull with woe.

Who has done this thing I wondered; what has wrought the ruin here?
Why these sunken cheeks and pallid where the roses once were pink?
Why has beauty fled her palace; did some vandal hand appear?
Did her lover prove unfaithful or her husband take to drink?

Once the golden voice of promise whispered sweetly in her ears;
She was born to be a garden where the smiles of love might lurk;
Now the eyes that shone like jewels are but gateways for her tears,
And she takes her place among us, toilers early bound for work.

Is it fate that writes so sadly, or the cruelty of man?
What foul deed has marred the parchment of a life so fair as this?
Who has wrecked this lovely temple and destroyed the Maker’s plan,
Raining blows on cheeks of beauty God had fashioned just to kiss?

Oh, the pale and weary faces of the people that I see
Are the ones that seem to haunt me, and I pray to God above
That such cruel desolation shall not ever come to be
Stamped forever in the future on the faces that I love.