Though no man resent his wrong,
Still is free the poet's song:
Still, a stag, his thought may leap
O'er the herded swine and sheep,
And in pastures far away
Lose the burden of the Day!
* * * * *
=_John Townsend Trowbridge,[91] 1827-._=
From the Atlantic Monthly.
=_415._= "DOROTHY IN THE GARRET."
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
Far under the eaves, or bunch of sage,
Or satchel hung on its nail, amid
The heir-looms of a by-gone age.
There is the ancient family chest,
There the ancestral cards and hatchel;
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,
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
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.
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