An Attic Dream

An Attic Dream.
244.1

All day the rain had softly beat
Its music on the window pane;
All day had tapped, like tiny feet,
Upon the shingles brown with stain.

Up in the attic long and low,
Strung on the rafters overhead
Were pennyroyal, thyme and sage-
The treasures of a summer dead.

In corners dark, where spiders lurked,
Old trunks and rubbish filled the space;
And in the center of the room
A spinning wheel held honored place.

Upon its bench of polished wood
The wool rows lay like drifts of snow;
And back and forth the spinner stepped,
And drew the soft thread to and fro.

The white rolls melted from the pile,
The thread upon the spindle grew;
The great wheel sang, now high now low,
Like crickets in the summer dew.

A perfume faint stole through the herbs
And changed her thoughts, grown staid and slow-
The spinner was a girl again
Among the flowers of long ago.

Adown the old and well-known paths
She walked again in youthful trust;
And as she dreamed, the scars of years
Fell from her soul like flakes of dust.

The roses nodded as she passed,
The wild birds sang a sweet refrain,
And grape-vines rich with yellow bloom
Made fragrant borders for the lane.

The setting sun broke through a cloud,
The spindle caught a golden gleam;
The spinner wound a last long thread,
A sweeter woman for her dream.
-Adella Washer.