Classic Poem

" Come, " she said, " and we will go down the hill
To see Mis' Meegan. I'll take that orange
You brought me; she hardly knows what they are.
She's the only real bachelor woman
We ever had in these parts. She was married
Just in name to her hired man, to keep him
From hiring out to the neighbors. He died
Long ago, worn out with running her farm.

They say she has money, but one can't tell
Seeing she lives from hand to mouth all the time,
Selling a few eggs to buy groceries;
The neighbors cut her wood free for her. "

We went down the hill. One could see the smoke
Curling slowly up from a black chimney,
But the turn of the road hid the farmhouse
Until we could smell the ripe caraway
That grew in the dooryard.

The house had sunk
Slowly into the ground, as the years passed;
The dooryard had grown to weeds and caraway,
And the banking of earth around the hewn sills
Had been there for years; quack grass and parsley
Matted the top; the clapboards had shriveled,
And the shingled roof was green with fine moss.

We knocked. A voice called out, " Come in — come in, "
And we stepped into a low, smudgy room,
With an old-fashioned stove in the middle —
One with a high oven and a low grate
Burned red with years and years of hard wood fires.
It was August, but coals were smouldering,
And the room was as hot as a hayloft.
Beside the stove sat an old woman
Dressed in full skirts, a basque and kerchief,
Aged as Time — a wrinkled mask of a face,
And nothing human in it.

" She's half blind, "
Said my friend; " you'll do just as she tells you. "

The mask lifted from the sunken breast;
" Who be ye, " it asked; " what did ye come for? "
The voice was like the crackle of frozen briars.

" I brought you a little fresh loaf, " my friend
Answered, " and a visitor from the city. "

" Is he young? " said the mask. " Yes, " replied my friend.
" Let him come here: I'll put my hands over
His face; I've forgotten how the young look.

" — Ah, smooth — so smooth. Young man, are you courting? "

I stammered the truth: " Yes, I was courting. "

" Bring her here; I want to see you together
Before I die; I've taken a notion
I've been a fool all my life. It's too late
Now to be seeing what lies in the world.
I was born hard; to me, folks meant nothing;
I don't remember thinking o' father
Or mother, in a way you'd call lovin'.
Perhaps they hadn't time to think of it —
They had such a time to get a living;
Perhaps 'twas because I couldn't read and write,
And had to cut notches for my counting
On cedar sticks. I worked out in the fields
Always, early and late. "

" But you went once, "
My friend said, " long ago, on a journey. "
The mask smiled — such a terrible grimace —
The fleshless eye-lids trembled a moment
And a tremor shook the withered shoulders,
" Yes, I went on a packet boat as far
As Rome on the Erie Canal, years ago.
I was almost too young to remember —
Never anywhere else, though. "

She reached down
Into the folds of her skirt and drew out
Tobacco and a clay pipe; filled, lit it
And puffed smoke out between toothless gums.

*****

My friend wrote me last month, saying,
" You remember Mis' Meegan; I went there
Again, and she said, " Is that young man coming
With the girl he's courting?"

" " Maybe," I said;
" He can come up next year; he's too busy
To come here often."

" She took her clay pipe,
Knocked the bowl on the hearth, laid it down
And said: " His face was so smooth; you'd know he was young
And courting. . . . I don't know how old I am

But I've just found out one ought to be lovin'
Before 'tis too late. I wish I'd seen them
Together. . . . When you find out there's lovin'
In the world, and going on all the time,
Passing you by, something you've never had,
You've got to die; I'm going to do that."

" She limped to the bed room; I helped her
On the high four-poster bed, covered her
And tidied up the kitchen a little.
When I came to go, she was sound asleep,
So I didn't disturb her.

" Next morning
We didn't see smoke from the chimney;
I put on my sunbonnet and went down:
She had never stirred from where I left her;
She had died by some quick wrench of will power,
Quitted a body no longer worthy
Even her soul as a tenant.

" I wish you had brought Sue up here before she died, —
It might have done the old woman good
Just to see you. Perhaps she'll find " lovin'"
Where she's gone. . . . "