Poems (Chitwood)/The Seamstress

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

THE SEAMSTRESS.

A dirge, and an open grave,
  A coffin upon the bier;
Then the clay fell over the care-worn breast,
And a form went down to its place of rest,
Like a weary bird to her evening nest
  In the tall trees waving near.

She had struggled long with life,
  Long with her weight of woe,
Till her eyes were dim with their flood of tears,
Till her breast was sick with its hopes and fears;
She had struggled on through weary years,
  Till the sands of life were low.

She had toiled from the early morn,
  When over the sleeping earth
The clear bright rays of the sunlight fell
Over the city, forest and dell;
And music woke like a fairy bell,
  With a tremulous sound of mirth.

Till the golden sun was set,
  And the changing day gone by,
And the stars shone forth like diamonds bright
Set in the jeweled crown of Night;
And the moon pour'd forth her flood of light
  From the fur-off azure sky.

Till her rounded cheek grew pale,
  With her weary, toilsome lot;
No friends were near, with their fond caress,
To speak kind words, to soothe and bless;
But she struggled on in her loneliness,
  Unnoticed and forgot.

Like a fettered bird long caged,
  Which is at length released,
Her soul flew forth from its cage of clay
Into the fields of light and day,
Where her spirit knows no more decay,
  But all shall whisper peace.

They have placed her in the tomb:
  None shed a sorrowing tear;
The busy world will go plodding on;
The night shall come, and the morning dawn
For long, long years, yet the spirit gone,
  No more shall suffer here.