ON SEEING IT ENTANGLED ON THE TABLE OF A NEGLIGENT FEMALE.
ON Celia’s toilet, spread with trinkets gay,
A skein of thread had long neglected lay;
Tumbled and soil’d, o’erlook’d by Celia’s glance,
For kind protection standing little chance:
I took it up, when, in a mournful lay,
Methought I heard it softly whispering say:
Ah! hapless skein, unheeded and abus’d,
With form disfigur’d, and with threads unus’d;
By servants’ dirty hands about I’m thrown,
Till my fine shape is to the eye unknown.
Was it for this I bloom’d in fields so fair,
And spread my leaves luxuriant in the air?
Was it for this, cut down in beauties pride,
Me and my kindred were in bundles tied?
Immers’d in water till we near expire,
Then scorch’d in sun, more fierce than raging fire?
Next beat with mallets, till our tender skin
Dividing, shew the fibres that’s within:
Then spun on wheels, until the finest hair,
With our slim texture cannot sure compare?
All this we suffer for a future fame,
Like dying martyrs who expire in flame;
And all my kindred happy in their lot,
Shall live for ages, unlike me, forgot.
For some of them the useful loom supplies,
And from their threads, the finest cambrics rise;
Some form the richest, the most costly lace,
Which e’er did shade the charms of beauty’s face:
Others have fallen to the housewife’s care,
And all but me, Industry’s honors share.
Ah! cruel Celia, think, e’er ’tis too late,
On all the horrors of my wretched state,
That I alone, of all my happy kind,
Should idle lie, which heaven ne’er design’d.
Oh! had the dames of Yore seen me disgrac’d,
And all my threads thus tumbled, thus misplac’d,
Their patient fingers would each maze divide,
Restoring neatness would have been their pride;
Their skilful genius would have me employ’d,
And I the honors of my race enjoy’d:
A sad reverse, ah, Celia, is my doom!
My threads shall form no lace, supply no loom;
I serve a slattern, can a fate be worse?
A slattern to herself, to all a curse.
Look on her clothes, where pins supply my place,
Alike to her and me, a dire disgrace;
Observe her stockings, they’re below her care,
She feels not for the wounds created there,
So she can coax them slily to conceal
Those wounds, which time, alas! can never heal:
I being the only balsam to apply,
To hide the fractures from the public eye;
What will she do when all her money’s spent,
Whilst on her gown, still wider grows each rent?
Whilst thus proceeding, with a frisking bound,
A playful kitten toss’d it to the ground;
With ruthless claws, and many a circling maze,
With the entangled thread she jumps and plays;
Celia beheld, without the lest regret,
The antic frolics of her favorite pet;
She view’d its gambols, till these gambols tire,
Then threw the hapless skein into the fire.
(Caroline Maxwell)
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Based on Topics: Sadness Poems, Time Poems, Faces Poems, Fairness Poems, Place Poems, Fire Poems, Beauty Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Water Poems, Hair Poems, Pride PoemsBased on Keywords: disgrac, gambols, frolics, slily, unus, slattern, bundles, erlook, neatness, negligent, frisking