| |
| IN that building, long and low, | |
| With its windows all a-row, | |
| Like the port-holes of a hulk, | |
| Human spiders spin and spin, | |
| Backward down their threads so thin | 5 |
| Dropping, each a hempen bulk. | |
| |
| At the end, an open door; | |
| Squares of sunshine on the floor | |
| Light the long and dusky lane; | |
| And the whirring of a wheel, | 10 |
| Dull and drowsy, makes me feel | |
| All its spokes are in my brain. | |
| |
| As the spinners to the end | |
| Downward go and reascend, | |
| Gleam the long threads in the sun; | 15 |
| While within this brain of mine | |
| Cobwebs brighter and more fine | |
| By the busy wheel are spun. | |
| |
| Two fair maidens in a swing, | |
| Like white doves upon the wing, | 20 |
| First before my vision pass; | |
| Laughing, as their gentle hands | |
| Closely clasp the twisted strands, | |
| At their shadow on the grass. | |
| |
| Then a booth of mountebanks, | 25 |
| With its smell of tan and planks, | |
| And a girl poised high in air | |
| On a cord, in spangled dress, | |
| With a faded loveliness, | |
| And a weary look of care. | 30 |
| |
| Then a homestead among farms, | |
| And a woman with bare arms | |
| Drawing water from a well; | |
| As the bucket mounts apace, | |
| With it mounts her own fair face, | 35 |
| As at some magician’s spell. | |
| |
| Then an old man in a tower, | |
| Ringing loud the noontide hour, | |
| While the rope coils round and round | |
| Like a serpent at his feet, | 40 |
| And again, in swift retreat, | |
| Nearly lifts him from the ground. | |
| |
| Then within a prison-yard, | |
| Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, | |
| Laughter and indecent mirth; | 45 |
| Ah! it is the gallows-tree! | |
| Breath of Christian charity, | |
| Blow, and sweep it from the earth! | |
| |
| Then a school-boy, with his kite | |
| Gleaming in a sky of light, | 50 |
| And an eager, upward look; | |
| Steeds pursued through lane and field; | |
| Fowlers with their snares concealed; | |
| And an angler by a brook. | |
| |
| Ships rejoicing in the breeze, | 55 |
| Wrecks that float o’er unknown seas, | |
| Anchors dragged through faithless sand; | |
| Sea-fog drifting overhead, | |
| And, with lessening line and lead, | |
| Sailors feeling for the land. | 60 |
| |
| All these scenes do I behold, | |
| These, and many left untold, | |
| In that building long and low; | |
| While the wheel goes round and round, | |
| With a drowsy, dreamy sound, | 65 |
| And the spinners backward go. | |
| |
