The Ropewalk

In that building, long and low,     With its windows all a-row,         Like the port-holes of a hulk,     Human spiders spin and spin,     Backward down their threads so thin         Dropping, each a hempen bulk.     At the end, an open door;     Squares of sunshine on the floor         Light the long and dusky lane;     And the whirring of a wheel,     Dull and drowsy, makes me feel         All its spokes are in my brain.     As the spinners to the end     Downward go and reascend,         Gleam the long threads in the sun;     While within this brain of mine     Cobwebs brighter and more fine         By the busy wheel are spun.     Two fair maidens in a swing,     Like white doves upon the wing,         First before my vision pass;     Laughing, as their gentle hands     Closely clasp the twisted strands,         At their shadow on the grass.     Then a booth of mountebanks,     With its smell of tan and planks,         And a girl poised high in air     On a cord, in spangled dress,     With a faded loveliness,         And a weary look of care.     Then a homestead among farms,     And a woman with bare arms         Drawing water from a well;     As the bucket mounts apace,     With it mounts her own fair face,         As at some magician's spell.     Then an old man in a tower,     Ringing loud the noontide hour,         While the rope coils round and round     Like a serpent at his feet,     And again, in swift retreat,         Nearly lifts him from the ground.     Then within a prison-yard,     Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,         Laughter and indecent mirth;     Ah! it is the gallows-tree!     Breath of Christian charity,         Blow, and sweep it from the earth!     Then a school-boy, with his kite     Gleaming in a sky of light,         And an eager, upward look;     Steeds pursued through lane and field;     Fowlers with their snares concealed;         And an angler by a brook.     Ships rejoicing in the breeze,     Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,         Anchors dragged through faithless sand;     Sea-fog drifting overhead,     And, with lessening line and lead,         Sailors feeling for the land.     All these scenes do I behold,     These, and many left untold,         In that building long and low;     While the wheel goes round and round,     With a drowsy, dreamy sound,         And the spinners backward go.