  In an ancient window seat, Where the breeze of morning beat ’Gainst her face, demure and sweet, Sat a girl of long ago, With her sunny head bent low Where her fingers flitted white Through a maze of patchwork bright. Wondrous hues the rare quilt bears! All the clothes the household wears By their fragments may be traced In that bright mosaic placed; Pieces given by friend and neighbor, Blended by her curious labor With the grandame’s gown of gray, And the silken bonnet gay That the baby’s head hath crowned, In the quaint design are found. Did she aught suspect or dream, As she sewed each dainty seam, That a haunted thing she wrought? That each linsey scrap was fraught With some tender memory, Which, in distant years to be, Would lost hopes and loves recall, When her eyes should on it fall? Years have passed, and with their grace Gentler made her gentle face; Brilliant still the fabrics shine Of the quilt’s antique design, As she folds it, soft and warm, Round a fair child’s sleeping form. Lustrous is her lifted gaze As with half-voiced words she prays That the bright head on that quilt May not bow in shame or guilt, And the little feet below Darksome paths may never know. Yet again the morning shines On the patch-work’s squares and lines; Dull and dim its colors show, But more dim the eyes that glow, Wandering with a dreamy glance O’er the ancient quilt’s expanse; Worn its textures are and frayed, But the hands upon them laid, Creased with toils of many a year, Still more worn and old appear. But what hands, long-loved and dead, Do those faded fingers, spread O’er those faded fabrics, meet In reunion fond and sweet! What past scenes of tenderness And of joy that none may guess, Called back by the patchwork old, Do those darkening eyes behold! Lo, the deathless past comes near! From the silence whisper clear Long-hushed tones, and, changing not, Forms and faces unforgot In their old-time grace and bloom Shine from out the deepening gloom. |
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