| |
| IN the low-raftered garret, stooping | |
| Carefully over the creaking boards, | |
| Old Maid Dorothy goes a-groping | |
| Among its dusty and cobwebbed hoards; | |
| Seeking some bundle of patches, hid | 5 |
| Far under the eaves, or bunch of sage, | |
| Or satchel hung on its nail, amid | |
| The heirlooms of a bygone age. | |
| |
| There is the ancient family chest, | |
| There the ancestral cards and hatchel; | 10 |
| Dorothy, sighing, sinks down to rest, | |
| Forgetful of patches, sage, and satchel. | |
| Ghosts of faces peer from the gloom | |
| Of the chimney, where with swifts and reel, | |
| And the long-disused, dismantled loom, | 15 |
| Stands the old-fashioned spinning-wheel. | |
| |
| She sees it back in the clean-swept kitchen, | |
| A part of her girlhood’s little world; | |
| Her mother is there by the window, stitching; | |
| Spindle buzzes, and reel is whirled | 20 |
| With many a click: on her little stool | |
| She sits, a child, by the open door, | |
| Watching, and dabbling her feet in the pool | |
| Of sunshine spilled on the gilded floor. | |
| |
| Her sisters are spinning all day long; | 25 |
| To her wakening sense the first sweet warning | |
| Of daylight come is the cheerful song | |
| To the hum of the wheel in the early morning. | |
| Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy, | |
| On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; | 30 |
| In neat white pinafore, pleased and coy, | |
| She reaches a hand to her bashful mate; | |
| |
| And under the elms, a prattling pair, | |
| Together they go, through glimmer and gloom:— | |
| It all comes back to her, dreaming there | 35 |
| In the low-raftered garret room; | |
| The hum of the wheel, and the summer weather, | |
| The heart’s first trouble, and love’s beginning, | |
| Are all in her memory linked together; | |
| And now it is she herself that is spinning. | 40 |
| |
| With the bloom of youth on cheek and lip, | |
| Turning the spokes with the flashing pin, | |
| Twisting the thread from the spindle-tip, | |
| Stretching it out and winding it in, | |
| To and fro, with a blithesome tread, | 45 |
| Singing she goes, and her heart is full, | |
| And many a long-drawn golden thread | |
| Of fancy is spun with the shining wool. | |
| |
| Her father sits in his favorite place, | |
| Puffing his pipe by the chimney-side; | 50 |
| Through curling clouds his kindly face | |
| Glows upon her with love and pride. | |
| Lulled by the wheel, in the old arm-chair | |
| Her mother is musing, cat in lap, | |
| With beautiful drooping head, and hair | 55 |
| Whitening under her snow-white cap. | |
| |
| One by one, to the grave, to the bridal, | |
| They have followed her sisters from the door; | |
| Now they are old, and she is their idol:— | |
| It all comes back on her heart once more. | 60 |
| In the autumn dusk the hearth gleams brightly, | |
| The wheel is set by the shadowy wall,— | |
| A hand at the latch,—’t is lifted lightly, | |
| And in walks Benjie, manly and tall. | |
| |
| His chair is placed; the old man tips | 65 |
| The pitcher, and brings his choicest fruit; | |
| Benjie basks in the blaze, and sips, | |
| And tells his story, and joints his flute: | |
| O, sweet the tunes, the talk, the laughter! | |
| They fill the hour with a glowing tide; | 70 |
| But sweeter the still, deep moments after, | |
| When she is alone by Benjie’s side. | |
| |
| But once with angry words they part: | |
| O, then the weary, weary days! | |
| Ever with restless, wretched heart, | 75 |
| Plying her task, she turns to gaze | |
| Far up the road; and early and late | |
| She harks for a footstep at the door, | |
| And starts at the gust that swings the gate, | |
| And prays for Benjie, who comes no more. | 80 |
| |
| Her fault? O Benjie, and could you steel | |
| Your thoughts towards one who loved you so?— | |
| Solace she seeks in the whirling wheel, | |
| In duty and love that lighten woe; | |
| Striving with labor, not in vain, | 85 |
| To drive away the dull day’s dreariness,— | |
| Blessing the toil that blunts the pain | |
| Of a deeper grief in the body’s weariness. | |
| |
| Proud and petted and spoiled was she: | |
| A word, and all her life is changed! | 90 |
| His wavering love too easily | |
| In the great, gay city grows estranged: | |
| One year: she sits in the old church pew; | |
| A rustle, a murmur,—O Dorothy! hide | |
| Your face and shut from your soul the view— | 95 |
| ’T is Benjie leading a white-veiled bride! | |
| |
| Now father and mother have long been dead, | |
| And the bride sleeps under a churchyard stone, | |
| And a bent old man with a grizzled head | |
| Walks up the long dim aisle alone. | 100 |
| Years blur to a mist; and Dorothy | |
| Sits doubting betwixt the ghost she seems, | |
| And the phantom of youth, more real than she, | |
| That meets her there in that haunt of dreams. | |
| |
| Bright young Dorothy, idolized daughter, | 105 |
| Sought by many a youthful adorer, | |
| Life, like a new-risen dawn on the water, | |
| Shining an endless vista before her! | |
| Old Maid Dorothy, wrinkled and gray, | |
| Groping under the farm-house eaves,— | 110 |
| And life was a brief November day | |
| That sets on a world of withered leaves! | |
| |
| Yet faithfulness in the humblest part | |
| Is better at last than proud success, | |
| And patience and love in a chastened heart | 115 |
| Are pearls more precious than happiness; | |
| And in that morning when she shall wake | |
| To the spring-time freshness of youth again, | |
| All trouble will seem but a flying flake, | |
| And lifelong sorrow a breath on the pane. | 120 |
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