The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

io Fresh younglings" shoot, and opening roses glow! young plants Swarms of new life exulting fill the air,� Haste, infant bud of being, haste to blow!0 bloom

For thee the nurse prepares her lulling songs, The eager matrons count the lingering day; 15 But far the most thy anxious parent longs On thy soft cheek a mother's kiss to lay.

She only asks to lay her burden down, That her glad arms that burden may resume; And nature's sharpest pangs her wishes crown,

20 That free thee living from thy living tomb.

She longs to fold to her maternal breast Part of herself, yet to herself unknown; To see and to salute the stranger guest, Fed with her life through many a tedious moon.

25 Come, reap thy rich inheritance of love! Bask in the fondness of a Mother's eye! Nor wit nor eloquence her heart shall move Like the first accents of thy feeble cry.

Haste, little captive, burst thy prison doors!

30 Launch on the living world, and spring to light! Nature for thee displays her various stores, Opens her thousand inlets of delight.

If charmed verse or muttered prayers had power, With favouring spells to speed thee on thy way,

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WASHING-DAY / 37

35 Anxious I'd bid my beads0 each passing hour, offer a prayer Till thy wished smile thy mother's pangs o'erpay.0 more than compensate ca. 1795? 1825

Washing-Day

. . . and their voice, Turning again towards childish treble, pipes And whistles in its sound.1

The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost The buskined0 step, and clear high-sounding phrase, tragic, elevated Language of gods. Come then, domestic Muse, In slipshod measure loosely prattling on

5 Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream, Or drowning flies, or shoe lost in the mire By little whimpering boy, with rueful face; Come, Muse; and sing the dreaded Washing-Day. Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,

10 With bowed soul, full well ye ken� the day know Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on Too soon;�for to that day nor peace belongs Nor comfort;�ere the first gray streak of dawn, The red-armed washers come and chase repose,

is Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth, E'er visited that day: the very cat, From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth, Visits the parlour,�an unwonted0 guest. unaccustomed The silent breakfast-meal is soon dispatched;

20 Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower. From that last evil, O preserve us, heavens! For should the skies pour down, adieu to all Remains of quiet: then expect to hear

25 Of sad disasters,�dirt and gravel stains Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once Snapped short,�and linen-horse0 by dog thrown down, drying rack And all the petty miseries of life. Saints have been calm while stretched upon the rack,

30 And Guatimozin2 smiled on burning coals; But never yet did housewife notable Greet with a smile a rainy washing-day. �But grant the welkin0 fair, require not thou sky Who call'st thyself perchance the master there,

35 Or study swept or nicely dusted coat, Or usual 'tendance;�ask not, indiscreet, Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents Gape wide as Erebus;0 nor hope to find the underworld

1. Looselv quoted from Shakespeare's As You Like who was tortured and executed by the Spanish It 2.7.160-62. conquistadors. 2. The last Aztec emperor (Cuanht^moc, d. 1525),

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