Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

A Year's Spinning

                   1
He listened at the porch that day,
    To hear the wheel go on, and on;
And then it stopped, ran back away,
    While through the door he brought the sun:
    But now my spinning is all done.

                   2
He sat beside me, with an oath
    That love ne'er ended, once begun;
I smiled—believing for us both,
    What was the truth for only one:
    And now my spinning is all done.

                   3
My mother cursed me that I heard
    A young man's wooing as I spun:
Thanks, cruel mother, for that word—
    For I have, since, a harder known!
    And now my spinning is all done.

                   4
I thought—O God!—my first-born's cry
    Both voices to mine ear would drown:
I listened in mine agony—
    It was the silence made me groan!
    And now my spinning is all done.

                   5
Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave,
    (Who cursed me on her death-bed lone)
And my dead baby's (God it save!)
    Who, not to bless me, would not moan.
    And now my spinning is all done.

                   6
A stone upon my heart and head,
    But no name written on the stone!
Sweet neighbours, whisper low instead,
    "This sinner was a loving one—
    And now her spinning is all done."

                   7
And let the door ajar remain,
    In case he should pass by anon;
And leave the wheel out very plain,—
    That HE, when passing in the sun,
    May see the spinning is all done.

1. The Holy Night
2. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 11. And therefore if to love can be desert
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 40. Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 25. A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne
5. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 19. The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize

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