I dreamt of wings, -- and waked to hear Through the low-sloping ceiling clear The nesting starlings flutter and scratch Among the rafters of the thatch, Not twenty inches from my head; And lay, half-dreaming in my bed, Watching the far elms -- bolt-upright Black towers of silence in a night Of stars, between the window-sill And the low-hung eaves, square-framed, until I drowsed, and must have slept a wink... And wakened to a ceaseless clink Of hammers ringing on the air... And, somehow, only half-aware, I'd risen and crept down the stair, Bewildered by strange smoky gloom, Until I'd reached the living-room That once had been a nail-shop shed. And where my hearth had blazed, instead I saw the nail-forge glowing red; And, through the stife and smoky glare, Three dreaming women standing there With hammers beating red-hot wire On tinkling anvils, by the fire, To ten-a-penny nails; and heard -- Though none looked up or breathed a word -- The song each heart sang to the tune Of hammers, through a summer's noon, When they had wrought in that red glow, Alive, a hundred years ago -- The song of girl and wife and crone, Sung in the heart of each alone... The dim-eyed crone with nodding head -- "He's dead; and I'll, too, soon be dead." The grave-eyed mother, gaunt with need -- "Another little mouth to feed!" The black-eyed girl, with eyes alight -- "I'll wear the yellow beads to-night." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET: FOR INSPIRATION by MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI RAILROAD RHYME by JOHN GODFREY SAXE SONNET DEDICATORY by AUGUSTE ANGELLIER BLUE CANTON-WARE by SARAH A. ATHEARN THE NURSE'S STORY: THE HAND OF GLORY by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM THE NEW WORLD; TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES by LAURENCE BINYON |