A Year's Spinning

HE listened at the porch that dayTo 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 oathThat 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 heardA 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 cryBoth 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.