Singers
Above, your house totters, while sparks begem
Your smoke-woven canopy.
Your dirge to the skies will groan now,
And beggars will bring live coals to fire
The straw-heap that is your throne now.
They dance in a ring around your pyre,
While I sing bass in the men's deep song.
And I ring in so loudly your final hour
That earth re-echoes my strokes of power."
Ding! Dong!
Your smoke-woven canopy.
Your dirge to the skies will groan now,
And beggars will bring live coals to fire
The straw-heap that is your throne now.
They dance in a ring around your pyre,
While I sing bass in the men's deep song.
And I ring in so loudly your final hour
That earth re-echoes my strokes of power."
Ding! Dong!
Up on the tower beams beside him sat
His wife in silence. Then she followed him
Down the steep ladder's length, she followed on
In silent thought down churchyard pathways trim.
Beside their cottage lay a narrow plot
Of garden by a hill, all baked and dry.
Thither she went alone, but in her ears
Still rang the deep bell and her husband's cry.
He, harsh and wild, slunk off as was his wont
To drink and gamble at a neighbor's house.
She sat her down among the stones beneath
The mingled maple and wild cherry boughs.
To save her Sunday shoes she loosened them
And slowly took them off. With playful air
She wove for fun a chain of maple leaves
And fastened on some cherries here and there.
Then she sprang up, hearing a man's voice nigh
And sound of more men coming, vaulted o'er
The latticed garden gate with nimble bound,
His wife in silence. Then she followed him
Down the steep ladder's length, she followed on
In silent thought down churchyard pathways trim.
Beside their cottage lay a narrow plot
Of garden by a hill, all baked and dry.
Thither she went alone, but in her ears
Still rang the deep bell and her husband's cry.
He, harsh and wild, slunk off as was his wont
To drink and gamble at a neighbor's house.
She sat her down among the stones beneath
The mingled maple and wild cherry boughs.
To save her Sunday shoes she loosened them
And slowly took them off. With playful air
She wove for fun a chain of maple leaves
And fastened on some cherries here and there.
Then she sprang up, hearing a man's voice nigh
And sound of more men coming, vaulted o'er
The latticed garden gate with nimble bound,
109
