Well-known and popular in its day,[1] both in the United States and Europe,[2][3] the song asks the fortunate to consider the plight of the less fortunate and includes one of Foster's favorite images: "a pale drooping maiden".

Released seven years before the American Civil War, it gained great popularity during that conflict as an expression of suffering and hardship, to the point that a satirical version about soldiers' food became widely circulated as well, "Hard Tack 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!

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!

'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!