A Year's Spinning

HE listened at the porch that day

      To hear the wheel go on, and on,

And then it stopped—ran back away—

      While through the door he brought the sun:

      But now my spinning is all done.

He sate beside me, with an oath

      That love ne'er ended, once begun;

I smiled—believing for us both,

      What was the truth for only one.

      And now my spinning is all done.

My mother cursed me that I heard

      A young man's wooing as I spun.

Thanks, cruel mother, for that word,

      For I have, since, a harder known!

      And now my spinning is all done.

I thought—O God!—my first-born's cry

      Both voices to my ear would drown:

I listened in mine agony—

      It was the silence, made me groan!

      And now my spinning is all done.

Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave,

      Who cursed me on her death-bed lone,

And my dead baby's—(God it save!)

      Who, not to bless me, would not moan.

      And now my spinning is all done.

A stone upon my heart and head,

      But no name written on the stone!

Sweet neighbours! whisper low instead,

      "This sinner was a loving one—

      And now her spinning is all done."

And let the door ajar remain,

      In case he should pass by anon;

And leave the wheel out very plain,

      That he, when passing in the sun,

      May see the spinning is all done.