Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SONG FOR WOMEN by ANNIE MATHESON

First Line: WITHIN A DREARY NARROW ROOM
Last Line: THE MEADOW POOL IS SMOOTH AS GLASS.
Subject(s): WOMEN'S RIGHTS; FEMINISM;
WITHIN a dreary narrow room
That looks upon a noisome street,
Half fainting with the stifling heat,
A starving girl works out her doom.
@3Yet not the less in God's sweet air
The little birds sing, free of care,
And hawthorns blossom everywhere.@1

Swift ceaseless toil scarce wins her bread:
From early dawn till twilight falls,
Shut in by four dull ugly walls,
The hours crawl round with murderous tread.
@3And all the while, in some still place,
Where intertwining boughs embrace,
The blackbirds build, time flies apace.@1

With envy of the folk who die,
Who may at last their leisure take,
Whose longed-for sleep none roughly wake,
Tired hands the restless needle ply.
@3But far and wide in meadows green
The golden buttercups are seen,
And reddening sorrel nods between.@1

Too pure and proud to soil her soul,
Or stoop to basely gotten gain,
By days of changeless want and pain
The seamstress earns a prisoner's dole.
@3While in the peaceful fields the sheep
Feed, quiet; and through heaven's blue deep
The silent cloud-wings stainless sweep.@1

And if she be alive or dead
That weary woman scarcely knows,
But back and forth her needle goes
In tune with throbbing heart and head.
@3Lo, where the leaning alders part,
White-bosomed swallows, blithe of heart,
Above still waters skim and dart.@1

O God in heaven! shall I, who share
That dying woman's womanhood,
Taste all the summer's bounteous good
Unburdened by her weight of care?
@3The white moon-daisies star the grass,
The lengthening shadows o'er them pass;
The meadow pool is smooth as glass.@1



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