Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DOUBLE SKEIN, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DOUBLE SKEIN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Up ere the throstle is out of the thorn
Last Line: For still with its treasure the heart will be.
Subject(s): Sea


UP ere the throstle is out of the thorn,
Or the east a-blush with a rosy break,
For she wakens earlier now of a morn;
Earlier now than she used to wake,
Such troublous moanings the seawaves make.

She leans to her distaff a weary brow,
And her cheeks seem ready the flax to burn,
And the wheel in her hand turns heavier now;
Heavier now than it used to turn,
When strong hands helped her the bread to earn.

She lists to the school-boy's laugh and shout,
And her eyes have the old expectant gleam;
And she draws the fine thread out and out,
Till it drags her back from her tender dream,
And wide and homeless the world doth seem.

Over the fields to the sands so brown,
And over the sands to the restless tides
She looks, and her heart tilts up and down;
Up and down with the boat as it rides,
And she cries, "God steady the hand that guides!"

She watches the lights from the seacliffs go,
Bedazed with a wonder of vague surprise,
For the sun seems now to be always low,
And never to rise as he used to rise --
The gracious glory of land and skies.

She shrinks from the pattered plash of the rain,
For it taps not now as it used to do,
Like a tearful Spirit of Love at the pane,
And the gray mist sweeping across the blue
Never so lightly, chills her through.

So spins she ever a double skein,
And the thread on her finger all eyes may see,
But the other is spun in her whirling brain
And out of the sea-fog over the sea,
For still with its treasure the heart will be.





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