Poems (Larcom)/Prudence
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!"