O would you dream of poems in a wash-tub, The washer-woman's pose like one of art, Her rub-a-dub to mean a French translation Or steaming suds of rainbow clouds a part? Yet what an art to cleanse the sordid linen, Life's masterpiece, the worker drab and plain, What palaces of dreams, what thoughts and fancies The suds reveal, what memories enchain! Ah, blowing in the wind, green sward beneath them, Sweet smelling, spotless, purged of all one loathes, Most surely art, the washer woman's Rembrandt -- Portraits clean cut, her swinging line of clothes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FRAGMENT 113 by HILDA DOOLITTLE LILIES: 12. 'YET I ENDURE.' by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) THE RUNAWAY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES BRAW LADS O' GALLA WATER by ROBERT BURNS MONTGOMERIE'S PEGGY by ROBERT BURNS |