Classic Poem

Behold her busy with her linen,
Yon ancient dame with silver hair,
The briskest of the washerwomen,
Though six-and-seventy years are there!
So has she followed, year by year,
The honest toil at which you find her,
Filling with diligence the sphere
Of useful labor God assigned her.

In her young days, (for she is human,)
She loved and hoped and wedded, too;
Well has she known the lot of woman,
Seen cares and sorrows not a few.
Her dear sick man she sought to save,
(Three children faithfully she bore him,)
Nor did she bury in the grave
Her faith and hope, when earth clos'd o'er him.

The precious charge, now laid upon her,
With cheerful energy she bore,
She trained them up in fear and honor,
Virtue and prudence all her store.
At length, to seek their livelihood,
They took her blessing and departed;
A lone old woman now she stood,
Yet cheerful, hopeful, and stout-hearted.

She spared, and scraped, and saved each penny,
And spun by night the flax she bought,
And of fine flax-thread yards full many
At last she to the weaver brought.
He wove her linen white as snow;
Her needle and her scissors plying,
A spotless burial-dress she so
Prepared against her day of dying.

Her dress—her burial-dress—with pleasure
And sacred pride she lays away;
It is her first and last—her treasure—
The fruit of many a toilsome day.
She puts it on, God's word to hear,
When Sabbath-bells sound holy warning,
Then lays it up again, to wear
The night before the eternal morning.

And would that I, when night shall find me,
Might read in life's last sinking sun,
That I had wrought the work assigned me,
As this good dame her task has done;—
That I had learned life's joy to drink
In such a full and even measure,
And could upon my grave-clothes think,
At last, with such a heart-felt pleasure.