Morris Rosenfeld

"It was in the damp, dark sweatshops of New York where I learned to sing of oppression, suffering and misery. During the day I worked and at night I wrote my poems."

"The machines in the shop roar so wildly that often I forget in the roar that I am; I am lost in the terrible tumult, my ego disappears, I am a machine. I work, and work, and work without end; I am busy, and busy, and busy at all time. For what? and for whom? I know not, I ask not! How should a machine ever come to think?"

"The tick of the clock is the Boss in his anger! The face of the clock has the eyes of a foe; The clock—Oh, I shudder—dost hear how it drives me? It calls me “Machine!” and it cries to me “Sew!”"

"When the work will have killed him another will be sitting in his place and sewing."

"I have a little boy, a fine little fellow is he! When I see him, it appears to me the whole world is mine. Only rarely, rarely I see him, my pretty little son, when he is awake; I find him always asleep, I see him only at night. My work drives me out early and brings me home late; oh, my own flesh is a stranger to me! oh, strange to me the glances of my child!"

"Seek me not 'mid blooming meadows, Not there my spirit can you trace, Where workers toil like spectral shadows, 'Tis there you’ll find my resting place. Seek me not where birds are singing, Not there my spirit can you trace, A slave am I, where chains are ringing, 'Tis there you’ll find my resting place. Seek me not 'mid fountains dashing, Not there my spirit can you trace, Where tears are falling, teeth are gnashing, 'Tis there you’ll find my resting place. And love’st thou me with love’s true passion Thy steps unto my spirit trace. Bring joy with thee; in love’s true fashion Make sweet to me my resting place."

"The Jewish workers called Morris Rosenfeld the poet laureate of the slum and the sweatshop."

"The first school of modern Yiddish poets to arise were "the sweat-shop poets." Poets such as Morris Rosenfeld and Dovid Edelshtat spoke to the difficult experiences of the many Jews who emigrated to America. True proletarian poets who labored in factories, these writers were published in the Yiddish labor papers, recited their verse at union rallies and were regarded as heroes by an immigrant community suffering under the weight of rapid cultural disintegration and enforced proletarianization."

"He never castigated the masses the way he did “the bosses” and certain politicians. He knew he was directing his messages of hope and incitement to political action to a people quite capable of taking their lives into their own hands. This arousal by the fiery poet was responded to the way he had hoped. They loved his poetry and forensic skills. They read every polemical article he ever wrote and encouraged him to be bolder."

"Suwalki and adjoining areas, including Bukhsa, were the sites of numerous battles and pogroms. In fact, according to a word-of-mouth tale by Rosenfeld himself (to the family), on the day of his birth there was just such a battle in his hometown and the glass windows of his house were shattered while he was being born."