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The Patchwork Bonnet

Across the room my silent love I throw,

Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,

Your young stern profile and industrious fingers

Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show,

To Dinda's grave delight.

The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread

Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam:

The patchwork pieces cry for joy together,

O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head,

Fulfilment of their dream.

Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten,

With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find,

Now wake to this most happy resurrection,

To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton

And staring at the blind.

Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand

Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear:

Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean,

And all the world must wait till she touches land;

So Dinda cries in fear,

Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy,

And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind,

Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings;

And now the shadows make an Umbrian Mary

Adoring, on the blind.