Hast Thou been working?

A passionate late-Victorian poem reimagines love as labor. The young speaker rejects a wealthy idler whose hands have never known work, who spends his days with cards and booze. She chooses instead a man whose chest burns with ardor and perseverance, whose palms are calloused from honest effort. Written in 1895 by Italian feminist Ada Negri, this poem pulses with radical defiance: love as partnership in struggle, not leisure. The collection presents the original Italian alongside translations in English, French, and German, each capturing Negri's fierce romantic vision. A century ahead of its time, it argues that desire lives in sweat and determination, not inherited wealth. For readers hungry for voices that challenged the gender expectations of their time, Negri offers not a princess waiting to be saved, but a woman who chooses her own fate.