Poems (Larcom)/Prudence

by Lucy Larcom

PRUDENCE.

WHAT is this round world to Prudence,
 With her round, black, restless eyes,
But a world for knitting stockings,
 Sweeping floors, and baking pies?

'T is a world that women work in,
 Sewing long seams, stitch by stitch:
Barns for hay, and chests for linen;—
 'T is a world where men grow rich.

Ten years old is little Prudence;
 Ten years older still she seems,
With her busy eyes and fingers,
 With her grown-up thoughts and schemes.

Sunset is the time for candles;
 Cows are milked at fall of dew;
Beans will grow, and melons ripen,
 When the summer skies are blue.

Is there more than work in living?
 Yes; a child must go to school,
And to meeting every Sunday;
 Not a heathen be, or fool.

Something more has haunted Prudence
 In the song of bird and bee,
In the low wind's dreamy whisper
 Through the light-leaved poplar-tree.

Something lingers, bends above her,
 Leaning at the mossy well;
Some sweet murmur from the meadows;
 On the air some gentle spell.

But she will not stop to listen:—
 Maybe there are witches yet!
So she runs away from beauty;
 Tries its presence to forget.

T is the way her mother taught her;
 Prudence is not much to blame.
Work is good for child or woman;
 Childhood's jailer,—'tis a shame!

Gravely at the romping children
 Their gray heads the gossips shake;
Saying, with a smile for Prudence,
 "What a good wife she will make!"