"Son," said my mother,
When I was
knee-high,
"you've need of
clothes to cover you,
and not a
rag have I.
"There's nothing in the house
To make a boy
breeches,
Nor
shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take
stitches.
"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of
rye,
And a
harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.
That was in the early
fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son," she said, "the
sight of you
Makes your mother's blood
crawl, --
"Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you'll get a
jacket from
God above knows.
"It's lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy's in the
ground,
And can't see the way I let
His son go around!"
And she made a
queer sound.
That was in the late fall.
When the
winter came,
I'd not a pair of breeches
Nor a
shirt to my name.
I couldn't go to
school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other
little boys
Passed our way.
"Son," said my mother,
"Come, climb into my lap,
And I'll
chafe your little bones
While you take a nap."
And, oh, but we were silly
For half and hour or more,
Me with my
long legs,
Dragging on the floor,
A-rock-rock-rocking
To a
mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour's time!
But there was I, a great boy,
And what would
folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a
daft way?
Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was
scarce,
And food was dear.
A wind with a
wolf's head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat upon the floor.
All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn't break,
And the
harp with a woman's head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity's sake.
The night before Christmas
I cried with cold,
I
cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year old.
And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With
love in her eyes.
I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A
light falling on her
From I couldn't tell where.
Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman's head
Leaned against her
shoulder.
Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-
weaving
Wonderful things.
Many bright threads,
From where I couldn't see,
Were running through the harp-
strings
Rapidly,
And gold threads whistling
Through my mother's hand.
I saw the
web grow,
And the
pattern expand.
She wove a child's
jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.
She wove a red
cloak
So
regal to see,
"She's made it for a king's son,"
I said, "and not for me."
But I knew it was for me.
She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of
boots
And a little cocked
hat.
She wove a pair of
mittens,
She wove a little
blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.
She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the
thread never broke,
And when I awoke, --
There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder,
Looking
nineteen,
And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a
light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.
And piled beside her
And
toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king's son,
Just my
size.
--from The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems, 1923, Edna St. Vincent Millay