And haply as the solemn years go by,
He will think sometimes, with regretful sigh,
The other woman was less true than I.

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK.

DOROTHY IN THE GARRET.

In the low-raftered garret, stooping
  Carefully over the creaking boards,
Old Maid Dorothy goes a-groping
  Among its dusty and cobwebbed hoards;
Seeking some bundle of patches, hid
  Far under the eaves, or bunch of sage,
Or satchel hung on its nail, amid
  The heirlooms of a bygone age.

There is the ancient family chest,
  There the ancestral cards and hatchel;
Dorothy, sighing, sinks down to rest,
  Forgetful of patches, sage, and satchel. 
Ghosts of faces peer from the gloom
  Of the chimney, where with swifts and reel,
And the long-disused, dismantled loom,
  Stands the old-fashioned spinning-wheel.

She sees it back in the clean-swept kitchen,
  A part of her girlhood’s little world;
Her mother is there by the window, stitching;
  Spindle buzzes, and reel is whirled
With many a click:  on her little stool
  She sits, a child, by the open door,
Watching, and dabbling her feet in the pool
  Of sunshine spilled on the gilded floor

Her sisters are spinning all day long;
  To her wakening sense the first sweet warning
Of daylight come is the cheerful song
  To the hum of the wheel in the early morning. 
Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy. 
  On his way to school, peeps in at the gate;
In neat white pinafore, pleased and coy,
  She reaches a hand to her bashful mate;

And under the elms, a prattling pair. 
  Together they go, through glimmer and gloom:—­
It all comes back to her, dreaming there
  In the low-raftered garret room;
The hum of the wheel, and the summer weather. 
  The heart’s first trouble, and love’s beginning,
Are all in her memory linked together;
  And now it is she herself that is spinning.

With the bloom of youth on cheek and lip. 
  Turning the spokes with the flashing pin,
Twisting the thread from the spindle-tip,
  Stretching it out and winding it in. 
To and fro, with a blithesome tread,
  Singing she goes, and her heart is full,
And many a long-drawn golden thread
  Of fancy is spun with the shining wool.

Her father sits in his favorite place,
  Puffing his pipe by the chimney-side;
Through curling clouds his kindly face
  Glows upon her with love and pride. 
Lulled by the wheel, in the old arm-chair
  Her mother is musing, cat in lap,
With beautiful drooping head, and hair
  Whitening under her snow-white cap.

One by one, to the grave, to the bridal,
  They have followed her sisters from the door;
Now they are old, and she is their idol:—­
  It all comes back on her heart once more. 
In the autumn dusk the hearth gleams brightly,
  The wheel is set by the shadowy wall,—­
A hand at the latch,—­’tis lifted lightly,
  And in walks Benjie, manly and tall.