Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PHILIP - A FRAGMENT, by ANN TAYLOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PHILIP - A FRAGMENT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peggy, his sole domestic, slowly grew
Last Line: Old peggy sent the manuscript to me.
Subject(s): Household Employees; Man-woman Relationships; Writing & Writers; Servants; Domestics; Maids; Male-female Relations


Peggy, his sole domestic, slowly grew
To be, in fact, his sole companion too.
When first she came she never thought—nor he—
With her odd master she could make so free:—
She was not pert:—he wished not to confer
With any living—doubtless, not with her.
But man is social, e'en against his will;
And woman kind, whatever rank she fill.
Her master came a lonely stranger here;
Feeble, dejected, friendless—'twould appear.
She pitied;—woman does; nor pitied less,
For knowing not the cause of his distress.
She was not young; and had her troubles known;
So that she felt his sorrows with her own;
And soon resolved to labour, all she could,
To cheer his spirits, and to do him good.

Though few and mean the attainments she could boast,
Peggy had passed her life upon the coast;
And she could thoughts and sentiments disclose,
Such as the inland peasant rarely knows.
On squally nights, or when it blew a gale,
Long she would stand, recounting tale on tale,
Of wreck or danger, or of rescue bold,
That she had witnessed, or her kindred told;
Bringing each long-lost circumstance to mind:
And genuine feeling taught her where to find
Terms more expressive, though of vulgar use,
Than hours of patient study will produce.
Her native eloquence would place in view
The very scene, and all its terrors too.
Meantime, to excuse her stay, she used to stand,
The tidy hearth still trimming—brush in hand:
Till he, with kind, though not familiar air,
Would interrupt with—"Peggy, take a chair."
A chair she took;—less easy when she had;
But soon resumed her tale, and both were glad.
Thus she became, at length, a parlour guest;
And he was happier, though 'twas ne'er confessed:
Rocks, sea, and hills, were here his friends by choice;
—But there is music in the human voice.

So passed their evenings oft; but now and then,
As the mood seized him, he would take a pen;
Wherewith, though slowly, into form was cast
A brief unfinished record of the past.
Whene'er for this her master gave the word,
His faithful Peggy neither spoke nor stirred:
She took her knitting—chose a distant seat,
And there she sat so still, and looked so neat,
'Twas quite a picture;—there was e'en a grace
In the trim border round her placid face.

When Philip wrote he never seemed so well,
—Was startled even if a cinder fell,
And quickly worried;—Peggy saw it all,
And felt the shock herself, if one did fall.
Of knowledge, she had little in her head;
But a nice feeling often serves instead;
And she had more than many better bred.

But now he felt, like men of greater note,
The harmless wish of reading what he wrote:—
Not to the world;—no, that he could not bear;
But here sat candid Peggy, in her chair:
And so it was, that he, whose inward woe
Was much too sacred for mankind to know,
He—so refined, mysterious, and so proud,
To a poor servant read his life aloud.
How weak is man, amused with things like these!
Or else, how vain are writers! which you please.

All Peggy heard she deemed exceeding good;
But chiefly praised the parts she understood.
At these, by turns, she used to smile or sigh;
And, with full credit, pass the other by:
While he, like men and wits of modern days,
Felt inly flattered by her humble praise.
Yet vigour failed to accomplish the design;
And 'twas but seldom he would add a line:
But when he died—some years ago at Lea,
Old Peggy sent the manuscript to me.





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