WHAT do the maids at shearing-time? One doffs her skirts and into the water, For all the last year's lambs have sought her Sniffing 'tis she who once brought grain To fill their mothers' dugs again; Mazed by her sheep-bell sing-song rime She draws one into the foam-veined pool And furrowing through its deep wet wool Slips her brown fingers small yet full. What do the maids at shearing-time? One at the dark, webbed shippon's door Hears muffled sounds on an earthen floor; Thence she toils with a haltered ewe Up to the barn to other two, Two maids who hum a sheep-bell rime And part the fleece in the left hand's span Ere it curls cream-thick from the shear-blades wan -- A maid can clip as well as a man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CREATION by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER MARRIAGE A LA MODE: SONG by JOHN DRYDEN SHADOWS: 2 by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES THE ALLIGATOR by BEATRICE WITTE RAVENEL THE SOLITARY REAPER by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH CASTLES by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |