Miss Lintlocks [poem by Agnes L. Storrie]

[Editor: This poem by Agnes L. Storrie was published in Poems, 1909.]

Miss Lintlocks.

Miss Lintlocks sits where the morning sun
Has woven a golden mesh,
And the airs that pass across the grass
Are tender, and sweet, and fresh.

Miss Lintlocks sings in a crooning voice,
Like a wind through the water-reeds,
Of the strangest things, of flowers with wings,
And wonderful dancing weeds,

Of birds that talk, of clouds that make
Soft pillows for little ones,
And of sailing high thro’ a purple sky
All sprinkled with silver suns.

Miss Lintlocks smiles at her dimpled foot
And nods at her tinted toes,
Then slips the tips ’tween her parted lips
And the point of her little nose,

For her knitted socks in the grass are hid
And her shoes are, she knows not where;
I fear, in sooth, to tell the truth
That Miss Lintlocks does not care.

There are shimmering waves of greenest grass,
There’s a soft wind from the south,
She surveys the skies with pensive eyes
And her pink toes in her mouth.

Miss Lintlocks knows what the flowers think,
She hears what the dust-motes say
As they spin and dance in the golden lance
That strikes through the shining day;

And the swinging leaves and the rosy halls
Of the oleander tree —
They flutter near to her little ear
And murmur drowsily.

Miss Lintlocks sways, like a blossom bowed
With a heartful of silver dew,
And her song grows dim, and a fringèd rim
Sinks over her eyes’ soft blue;

And the dimpled foot and the tinted toes
Have slipped from her loosened hold,
And lie like fair rose-petals there
Across the green and gold.

Miss Lintlocks sleeps, and her tiny palms
On the grasses lie uncurled;
She is locked in a deep, sweet, childish sleep,
Unspotted from the world.

My little bud in the sunny grass!
My maid with the lint-white locks.
God keep thy feet from the toils, my sweet,
From thorns and bruising rocks!

I could see thy life in a mist of grief,
I could bear thou should’st suffer pain,
But I pray my breath may be held in death
Ere I see thee with spot or stain.

God keep thine ears for the whispering leaves,
Thine eyes for the bright sun-scroll,
While thy heart is free for their ministry
I’ll fear not for thy soul.

Source:
Agnes L. Storrie. Poems, J. W. Kettlewell, Sydney, 1909, pages 33-35