C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Anne Reeve Aldrich (1866–1892)

I MADE the cross myself whose weight

Was later laid on me:

This thought is torture as I toil

Up life’s steep Calvary.

To think mine own hands drove the nails!

I sung a merry song,

And chose the heaviest wood I had

To build it firm and strong.

If I had guessed—if I had dreamed

Its weight was made for me,

I should have made a lighter cross

To bear up Calvary.