Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Spinning
By Helen Hunt Jackson (18301885)L
I tread my days;
I know that all the threads will run
Appointed ways;
I know each day will bring its task,
And, being blind, no more I ask.
Of that I spin;
I only know that some one came,
And laid within
My hand the thread, and said, “Since you
Are blind, but one thing you can do.”
And tangled fly,
I know wild storms are sweeping past,
And fear that I
Shall fall; but dare not try to find
A safer place, since I am blind.
That tint and place,
In some great fabric to endure
Past time and race
My threads will have; so from the first,
Though blind, I never felt accurst.
From one short word
Said over me when I was young,—
So young, I heard
It, knowing not that God’s name signed
My brow, and sealed me his, though blind.
Within, without,
It matters not. The bond divine
I never doubt.
I know He set me here, and still,
And glad, and blind, I wait His will;
To hear their tread
Who bear the finished web away,
And cut the thread,
And bring God’s message in the sun,
“Thou poor blind spinner, work is done.”