William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

Kivers

YES, I’ve sev’ral kivers you can see;

’Light, and hitch your beastie in the shade!

I don’t foller weaving now so free,

And all my purtiest ones my forebears made.

Home-dyed colors kindly meller down

Better than these new fotched-on ones from town.

I ricollect my granny at the loom

Weaving that blue one yonder on the bed.

She put the shuttle by and laid in tomb.

Her word was I could claim hit when I wed.

“Flower of Edinboro’” was hit’s name,

Betokening the land from which she came.

Nary a daughter have I for the boon,

But there’s my son’s wife, from the level land,

She took the night with us at harvest-moon,—

A comely, fair young maid, with loving hand.

I gave her three—“Sunrise” and “Trailing Vine”

And “Young Man’s Fancy.” She admired ’em fine.

That green one mostly wrops around the bread;

“Tennessee Lace’“ I take to ride behind’.

Hither and yon right smart of them have fled.

Inside the chest I keep my choicest kind—

“Pine-Bloom,” and “St. Ann’s Robe” (of hickory brown),

“Star of the East” (that yaller’s fading down!).

The Rose? I wove hit courting, long ago,—

Not Simon, though he’s proper kind of heart—

His name was Hugh—the fever laid him low—

I allus keep that kiver set apart.

“Rose of the Valley,” he would laugh and say,

“The kiver’s favoring your face today!”