The Loom of Life

Excerpt

THE OLD-FASHIONED LOOM

The old log house where Margaret lived, whose roof had mossy grown,
Reposed amid its clump of trees, a queen upon her throne.
The landscape round smiled proudly and the flowers shed sweet perfume,
When Margaret plied the shuttle of the rude old-fashioned loom.
The world has grown fastidious—demands things ever new—
But we could once see beauties in the rainbow's every hue;
The bee could then find nectar in a common clover bloom,
And simple hearts hear music in the shuttle of the loom.
The picture that my memory paints is never seen to-day—
The April sun of by-gone years has lost its brightest ray:
A fancy-wrought piano in a quaint, antique old room,
But Margaret sang her sweetest to the music of the loom.
She wore a simple home-spun dress, for Margaret's taste was plain,
Yet life was like a song to her, with work a sweet refrain.
The sunshine filled her days with joy, night's shadows brought no gloom.
When Margaret plied the shuttle of the old old-fashioned loom.
Her warp of life was toiling hard, but love its beauteous woof.
The web she wove, a character beyond the world's reproof.
O girls of wealth and beauty vain, who dress in rich costume,
How sweet the shuttle's music of this rare old-fashioned loom.
The world may grow fastidious in art and nature too,
And say there is no beauty in the rainbow's every hue;
And yet the bee finds nectar in a common clover bloom,
And I still love the music of the old old-fashioned loom.

Dear old Old Clock, thy grave tick tock
I heard in my childhood days,
In the solemn night, when the fire burned bright,
And the lamp cast feeble rays;
When grandmother close by the mantelpiece,
Sat dozing or knitting, or carding fleece,
Or watching the dying blaze;
When mother was young and her beautiful hair
Had never a silver thread;
When her life was fair as her love was rare,
In the years that have swiftly sped.
Thy grave tick tock, dear old Old Clock,
Unchanged through the changing years,
Still beating time in a ceaseless rhyme
To the dirge of the rolling spheres,—
Unmindful that she by the mantelpiece
Is gone with her knitting and carding fleece,—
Unmoved by our sorrowing tears—
Brings back the days when mother's hair
Had never a silver thread,
And the life still fair in its beauty rare
When the snows had crowned her head.

THE OLD SPINNING WHEEL

A cabin! It nestled amid the green hills
Where grew no bramble or thistle,—
Mid meadows melodious with music and trills
And song that the wild-throated mocking bird spills
On the air from his marvelous whistle.
No carpets were seen on the broad puncheon floors,
No paintings that wealth would reveal;
But a statue was there that Art can not know,
That filled the rude room with a musical glow,—
'Twas Ruth at the Old Spinning Wheel!
Long years have passed by; its music was stilled
At rattle and whirr of machinery.
And the pea-fowl now screams where the mocking bird trilled,
And the landscape is dead where once the heart thrilled
At wildwood and picturesque scenery....