WHAT do the maids at shearing-time? One doffs her skirts and into the water, For all the last year's lambs have sought her Sniffing 'tis she who once brought grain To fill their mothers' dugs again; Mazed by her sheep-bell sing-song rime She draws one into the foam-veined pool And furrowing through its deep wet wool Slips her brown fingers small yet full. What do the maids at shearing-time? One at the dark, webbed shippon's door Hears muffled sounds on an earthen floor; Thence she toils with a haltered ewe Up to the barn to other two, Two maids who hum a sheep-bell rime And part the fleece in the left hand's span Ere it curls cream-thick from the shear-blades wan -- A maid can clip as well as a man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ARCHITECT AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA by KAREN SWENSON ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS by ROBERT BURNS THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: HIAWATHA'S WOOING by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ULTIMA THULE: DEDICATION by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE LAST GOODBYE by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD by WALTER RALEIGH THE ATLANTIDES by HENRY DAVID THOREAU |