The Ballad Of The poor Weaver!
By Edna St. Vincent Millay & prasad
"Son," said his mother with low eye,
When he was just her knee-high,
"People are in need of clothes
You have to learn how to weave,
It is time you to apprentice, so leave!
"There's nothing in the fields
To grow cotton its flower yields
No water no cattle no plough
No Tahkli spindles, no whorls,
No fast flyers, no spinning wheels!
"There's nothing in the kitchen
Not a loaf of bread in the oven
No wheat flour, no rice flakes
Not a drop of kanji or cakes
Nor a piece of green chilly or onion,'-
And she began to cry, he also cried
That was in the early fall he tried
He came after many late falls,
" O Little one! cried she, -' you are so thin,
You are popping out of your own skin!
Why hunger is sticking through your eyes?
Did your master not pay all these years?
Fifteen winters passed you went to Pune!
God only knows here how i suffered,
A widow is not welcome in any crowd!
Eat your dinner and tell me your work!
"Son," she said, "how far and how good
You learnt the skills of weaving thread?
Your father was a skilled artisan, but
His drunkenness killed him in his hut!'-
"I am lucky O lad, you have returned,
Your daddy's in the ground unturned,
And i can't see the way he lived
His son should not go around
With a bottle, and she made a queer sound.
Son! Don't smoke, my dearest one!
It smokes away your lungs to bone!'-
That was in the late fall.
He purchased a weaving loom
And started his own cloth weaving boom!
Warp and weft, knitting, felting, braiding,
Plaiting, twill, plain and satin weaving,
On his loom he is a master craftsman
Shedding, picking, battening,
His mother helped him like lightning
Let off, take up, warp stop, weft stop
On a pirn, in a shuttle or on rapier
He worked with zeal and nonstop
Plain, hopsacks, poplin, taffeta, pibiones,
Grosgrain, twills, velvets and satins
He weaved with ease and finesse
His mother was so glad and happy
Under her care he became healthy
A pretty girl in their community
Became his wife and his knitty kitty!
................
.............
A-rock-rock-rocking loom
To our mother's old rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy and gay
Soon a cradle came like a dream
For all of us it is celebrating time!
But there was he, a great boy,
And what would folks say, hai hai!
To hear my mother singing to him
The songs of weavers wisdom
In such a daft way in the candle dim?
Men say the winter was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce and costly than ever
And food was dear and yarn costlier
A wind with a wolf's head peeked near
And howled and howled about our door,
More winters scorched us like summers
And we burned up the chairs and mirrors
Two more children entered our halls
And sat upon the floor of poverty
What can i offer them in this cursed city?
All what was left was the powerdied loom
A life misery expecting subsidies of doom
The loan sharks are beating warning drums
And the cloth with a weaver's break
Nobody would take for song or pity's sake.
The wolves with lamb heads and sheep skin
Howled at nights with hungry eyes made din
I cried with cold, I cried myself to no sleep,
Like a two-year old and mother saw me weep,
To drown my sorrows i borrowed a medicine!
And in the deep night I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me with fear in her eyes.
I saw my wife sitting on one side near me
A light falling on her from I couldn't tell where.
My mother was looking at us and somewhere!
Perhaps in the direction of my father's grave,
I prtetended sleep but cough came like a wave,
I sat up to spit, in it the frothy sputum is red,
We all wept and my smoking and drink said-
-Come! Enjoy the little time before you are dead!
Hospitals were full of my clones in pills
A few needles tasted my blood to test my ills!
Xrays and drug trays confirmed tuberculosis
Her thin fingers, moving In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving holes in my lungs!
Many bright threads, from where I couldn't see,
Were running through the warp and weft sea
Old ballads were visiting my mother's tears
I saw the debt web grow, the pattern expand.
Who can save us from this deep quicksand?
The wolf was at the door looking at the kids
My mother and wife looked at one another
I went out and returned with my old buddies,
After a long time my house is filled with aroma
Everyone is in festival dress, i don't know why?
My mother sang a lullaby as she served,
And my wife joined her and kids laughed,
Merrily we all laughed but there were tears
Her voice faltered while singing the song
The song of weavers life and the loom's wrong!
And the thread never broke, suddenly I awoke,--
I threw away the dishes and food all at once!
And wept like a child and promised in silence!
I will not touch these evil spirits again in life!
We all live and fight together against any strife!
There sat my mother, wife and three children,
My mother sang the lullaby of weavers wisdom!
A smile about her lips, and a light in her eyes,
And my hands at the powerloom all smiles
Were the clothes of my life, Just my size.
.......
.......
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American poet and playwright.[1] She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry,[2] and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, "She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century. Dress Affordable sage green colored items to pick for maid of the brides
Copyright@DrLsr Prasad 20.7.2017