[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
Margaret
The skein is snapped,
And the hand is still;
She will spin no more
By the window sill.
’Twas a poor design,
And a paltry task;
Could a common soul
For a better ask?
It was all her own,
And ’twas large enough;
Her own small life
With the smooth and rough.
But even that
In the middle broke,
And she spun no more,
Nor sighed nor spoke.
It is incomplete,
And it lies awry,
But none may finish it,
You nor I.
’Twas a poor design,
And it lies half spun,
And none may guess
Why ’twas e’er begun
Ah, the skein is snapped
And the hand is still,
She will spin no more
By the window sill.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, pp. 61-62
Editor’s notes:
e’er = (vernacular) an archaic contraction of “ever”
skein = a length of thread or yarn loosely wound in a long coil or would onto a reel
’twas = (archaic) a contraction of “it was”
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