Poetry of the Farm and Rural Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

This stormy night is just the time
To spin “Old Knick” a skein of rhyme,
A sort of homely thrum;
The spinning won't be finely done,
My wheel, once touched, is apt to run
Hap-hazard, with a hum.
Still, if will wear this thrum of mine,

It easy might be worse;
There are, who spin too very fine
The thread of their discourse.

They fabric fine appearing stuff,
The work may all be well enough,
No knots or kinks therein,
It shows in market extra nice,
The buyer merely asks the price,
And jingles out “the tin.”
But proving, second thought, 'tis said,
The eyes will open full;
He's bought a fine, long pretty thread
But precious little wool.

I doubt not, this blockading storm
Is snowing round your cottage warm,
As it begirts my own;
I doubt not, that this very night,
All cosy in your sanctum bright,
You hear it rage and moan.
I ken your heart; a pensive face
Tells what to mind is brought,
And moves your current pen to trace
The humane, tender thought.

My cat comes powdered from the byre;
(That dog has no more need of fire,
He perished long ago;)—
I ope the door to let puss in:
Puff! comes the blast with gusty din
And white with drifting snow.
Avaunt! and keep the broad outside,
Wild riders of the storm!
No blazing fuel, freely plied,
Your polar breath can warm!

There pussy in the corner sits,
And while her furry coat emits
The freshness of the night,
She looks as “meek as Moses” while
She perpetrates a feline smile,
And purrs in sheer delight.
I love kind mercy to extend
E'en to a mousing cat;
However much thereof we lend,
We're borrowers, at that.

Thick frost encrusts the window-panes;
The storm I see not, but its strains
Are heard in awful play:
The spiteful dash against the glass,
The grumbled sough, as off they pass,
Hoarse-humming, far away.
Where now's that little feathered dot
Of life, I saw to-day?
Has she some canny shelter got?
Or blown in death away?

She flitted, cheeping, round my head,
At morn, as I the cattle fed;
Her voice was low and sweet,
As if she craved my garnered store;
Poor thing! but for thy coyness, more
Thou'd hadst than thou could'st eat,
Or did she with prophetic ken
This awful night foresee,
And call for Summer back again,
And her infolding tree?

Scarce bigger than my thumb was she;
A crumb a loaf for her would be;
She flitted and was gone;

Yet that bird haunts my thoughts to-night:
May He, who notes the sparrows, light
For her a cheerful dawn!
And thus all breathing life is spent,
See-sawing, like the boy;
See, ‘winter of our discontent;’
Saw, summer-time of joy.

The clock has threatened to strike ten:
Retiring hour for honest men;
For rogues an o'er late one;
I'll slip the band from off the wheel,
Tell off the thread upon the reel,
And even call it done.
And quite a lusty skein I've got!
You think so—don't you—sort o'?—
If forty threads compose a “knot,”
Here's two knots and a quarter.