The Queen of the fairies (A village story): and other poems: By Violet Fane [i.e. M. M. Lamb] |
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ON WORKING A COUNTERPANE. |
 | The Queen of the fairies |  |
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ON WORKING A COUNTERPANE.
I work'd some lilies once, and said,“Oh, waste of needle and of thread!
Oh, waste of lilies white as milk!
Oh, waste of eyesight, time, and silk!
How short a while your hues will shed
A transient lustre o'er this bed
Empty of love! Yes, pale, I ween,
Will wax these leaves my fingers traced
With so much patience! I have seen
By time and moth and dust effaced
Old feudal hangings, broiderèd
Doubtless by ladies fair, who graced
Banquet and bower—yes, my time I waste
In such fool's labour!”...Then each lily's head
Seem'd to uprise in anger, as they said
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Of which, of silk or beauty, doth the sheen
Endure the longest? Ah, the hands that traced
Those faded colours, and the feet that paced
Those corridors all arras-curtainèd,
Are they but just a little faded too?
Of them doth there remain one tatter'd shred?
Spurn not thy work; the little thou mayst do
Is thy best, most immortal part. Between
The cradle and the tomb, thy path is spread
With things far more enduring than thy tread,
Whereof the echo dies; and pink and red
And lilies white, with broider'd stems of green,
May be, poor fsempstress! when thou wilt have been,
And blossom on long after thou art dead!”
| The Queen of the fairies | |