The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien

A chimney's shadow, flung by the sun
As it sank in the west when the day was done,
Silent and dark as the noiseless bat
Crept through the room where the work-girl sat,—
Where she sat all day at her poor pine table,
Working, as long as her hands were able,
On shirt and collar and chemisette,
On gowns of silk and on veils of net,
Till her busy fingers seemed to be
A skeleton kind of machinery.
The table was strewn with threads of silk,
With pearly buttons that shone like milk,
With gaudy stuffs of a thousand dyes,
And beads that gleamed in the gloom like eyes;
While in the midst of these beautiful things
Glimmered a Sewing Bird's silver wings.
But the blankets that lay on her bed were poor,
And cracks were plain in the crazy door,
The roof was low and the floor was old,
And the work-girl shivered as if a-cold;

And to judge by the veins in her wan white hand,
She did not live on the fat of the land.

University of Virginia Library

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