Classic Poem

Bless her heart! I see her shake
All the lawn weeds from her rake,
In her home she seems to take
Such a comfort, such a care,
As if these old mountain fields
Were her precious annual yields,
And her back their warrior shields,
Like the children she did bear.

Now the peach tree boughs she strips,
Now her flower borders clips:
These are the same earnest lips,
Thirty years and three agone,
That to me in beauty came,
Fearing not my fiery flame,
Sinking in my name her name —
That dear lady on the lawn.

Diligence was all her art,
Open as the day her heart,
Nothing subtle, double, smart —
Now I know it, now I weep;
For her hair is growing grey,
And I feel some lonely day,
None will rake the spring-time hay,
Where she lowly lies asleep.

But no rust is in her hair,
In her hands or anywhere;
Like some gold-piece lost by wear,
She has wasted grain by grain.
After her will live her fruit,
May they get her tireless foot!
There can be no dust nor soot
In the orbit of that brain.