Classic Poem

I dreamed of wings — and waked to hear
Through the low-sloping ceiling clear
The nesting starlings flutter and scratch
Among the rafters of the thatch
Not twenty inches from my head;
And lay half-dreaming in my bed,
Watching the far elms — bolt-upright,
Black towers of silence in a night
Of stars, between the window-sill
And the low-hung eaves square-framed, until
I drowsed and must have slept a wink ...
And wakened to a ceaseless clink
Of hammers ringing on the air ...
And somehow, only half-aware,
I'd risen and crept down the stair,
Bewildered by strange smoky gloom,
Until I'd reached the living-room
That once had been a nail-shop shed.
And where my hearth had blazed, instead
I saw the nail-forge glowing red,
And through the stife and smoky glare
Three dreaming women standing there
With hammers beating red-hot wire
On tinkling anvils by the fire
To ten-a-penny nails, and heard —
Though none looked up or breathed a word,
The song each heart sang to the tune
Of hammers through a summer's noon
When they had wrought in that red glow
Alive a hundred years ago —
The song of girl and wife and crone
Sung in the heart of each alone ...

The dim-eyed crone with nodding head —
He's dead, and I'll, too, soon be dead.

The grave-eyed mother gaunt with need —
Another little mouth to feed!

The black-eyed girl with eyes alight —
I'll wear the yellow beads to-night.