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| from Blount, Ethel, The Story of the Homespun Web |
When time was young a princess fell
(A heart most rare,
A soul most fair!)
Beneath a fiendish wizard's spell.
His Hell-broth won, the poison wrought;
Afar from man
The princess ran
De-humanised, a thing distraught.
From out the kindly human ranks
She ran, accurst,
For blood a-thirst,
With tawny stripes upon her flanks,
Then came at night in dreadful quest
To roam and roam
Around her home
Where once with Love she took her rest.
She saw her husband's spear and dart;
The eyes of ire
Glared forth the fire
That fed upon the tiger-heart!
She saw her children's dolls and ships;
Without a sound
She snuffed around
And licked those dreadful, dreadful lips;
Then saw her pretty weaving gear
Of flax and loom;
In puzzled gloom
The tiger-heart began to fear
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| from Blount, Ethel, The Story of the Homespun Web |
There lay her little spinning-wheel,
The band unbound,
The reel unwound;
The tiger-heart began to feel.
There lay her dainty little pirn,
The thread undone,
The wool unspun;
The woman-heart began to burn;
The cruel heart, the eyes of steel
Began to yearn,
Began to turn
At sight of flax and fleece and wheel.
The yellow stripes and eyes of gloom
Began to fade,
Passed into shade;
The princess stood beside her loom.
The loom and spindle, flax and fleece,
The living art,
Called back her heart
And filled her soul with vital peace.
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