One of my favorites is Stephen Foster’s Hard Times, Come Again No More (1873):

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

There are frail forms fainting at the door:

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say –

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away

With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:

Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days have lingered around my cab in door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

‘ Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,

‘ Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave, –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.