The Ballad of the Harp Weaver (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

The Ballad of the Harp Weaver

Son, said my mother,

   When I was knee-high,

You’ve need of clothes to cover you,

   And not a rag have I.

There’s nothing in the house

   To make a boy breeches,

Nor shears to cut a cloth with

   Nor thread to take stitches.

There’s nothing in the house

   But a loaf-end of rye,

And a harp with a woman’s head

   Nobody will buy.  And she began to cry.

That was in the early fall.

   When came the late fall,

Son, she said, the sight of you

   Makes your mother’s blood crawl,--

Little skinny shoulder-blades

   Sticking through your clothes!

And where you’ll get a jacket from

   God above knows.

It’s lucky fo rme, lad,

   Your daddy’s in the ground,

And can’t see the way I let

   His son go around!

   And she made a queer sound.

That was in the late fall.

   When the winter came,

I’d not a pair of breeches

   Nor a shirt to my name.

I couldn’t go to school,

   Or out of doors to play.

And all the other little boys

   Passed our way.

Son, said my mother,

   Come, climb into my lap,

And I’ll chafe your little bones

   While you take a nap.

And, oh, but we were silly

   For half an hour or more,

Me with my long legs

   Dragging on the floor,

A rock-rock-rocking

   To a mother-goose rhyme!

Oh, but we were happy

   For half an hour’s time!

But there was I, a great boy,

   And what would folks say

To hear my mother singing me

   To sleep all day,

   In such a daft way?

Men say the winter

   Was bad that year

Fuel was scarce,

   And food was dear.

A wind with a wolf’s  head

   Howled about our door,

And we burned up the chairs

   And sat upon the floor.

All that was left us

   Was a chair we couldn’t break,

And the harp with a woman’s head

   Nobody would take,

   For song or pity’s sake.

The night before Christmas

   I cried with the cold,

I cried myself to sleep

   Like a two-year-old.

And in the deep night

   I felt my mother rise,

And stare down upon me

   With love in her eys.

I saw my mother sitting

   On the one good chair,

A light falling on her

   From I couldn’t tell where,

Looking nineteen,

   And not a day older,

And the harp ith a woman’s head

   Leaned upon her should.

Her thin fingers, moving,

   In the thin, tall strings,

Were weav-weav-weaving

   Wonderful things.

Many bright threads,

   From where I couldn’t see,

Were running through the harp-strings

   Rapidly.

And gold threads whistling

   Through my mother’s hand.

I saw the web grow,

   And the pattern expand.

She wove a child’s jacket,

   And when it was done

She laid it on the flor

   And wove another one.

She wove a red cloak

   So regal to see,

She’s made it for a king’s son,

   I said, and not for me.

   But I knew it was for me.

She wove a pair of breeches

   Quicker than that!

She wove a pair of boots

   And a little cocked hat.

She wove a pair of mittens,

   She wove a little blouse,

She wove all night

   In the still, cold house.

She sang as she worked,

   And the harp-strings spoke;

Her voice never faltered,

   And the thread never broke.

   And when I awoke,--

There sat my mother

   With the harp against her shoulder

Looking nineteen

   And not a day older,

A smile about her lips,

   And a light about her head,

And her hands in the harp-strings

   Frozen dead.

And piled up beside her

   And toppling to the skies,

Were the clothes of a king’s son,

   Just my size.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

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