Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,--
But thou another mask hast donned,
And lurest still, just, just, beyond!

But here a voice, I know not whence,
Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
Saying, "See where she sits at home,
While thou in search of her dost roam!
All summer long her ancient wheel
Whirls humming by the open door,
Or, when the hickory's social zeal
Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
It modulates the household mirth
With that sweet, serious undertone
Of Duty, music all her own;
Still, as of old, she sits and spins
Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
With equal care she twines the fates
Of cottages and mighty states;
She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
The piping west-wind's snowy care
For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
Or from the thorns of evil times
She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
Morning and noon and eve supply