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| DOROTHY goes with her pails to the ancient well in the courtyard | |
| Daily at gray of morn, daily ere twilight at eve; | |
| Often and often again she winds at the mighty old windlass, | |
| Still with her strong red arms landing the bucket aright: | |
| Then, her beechen yoke press’d down on her broad square shoulders, | 5 |
| Stately, erect, like a queen, she with her burden returns: | |
| She with her burden returns to the fields that she loves, to the cattle | |
| Lowing beside the troughs, welcoming her and her pails. | |
| Dorothy—who is she? She is only a servant-of-all-work; | |
| Servant at White Rose Farm, under the cliff in the vale: | 10 |
| Under the sandstone cliff, where martins build in the springtime, | |
| Hard by the green level meads, hard by the streams of the Yore. | |
| Oh, what a notable lass is our Dolly, the pride of the dairy! | |
| Stalwart and tall as a man, strong as a heifer to work: | |
| Built for beauty, indeed, but certainly built for labor— | 15 |
| Witness her muscular arm, witness the grip of her hand! | |
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| Weakly her mistress was, and weakly the two little daughters; | |
| But by her master’s side Dorothy wrought like a son: | |
| Wrought out of doors on the farm, and labor’d in dairy and kitchen, | |
| Doing the work of two; help and support of them all. | 20 |
| Rough were her broad brown hands, and within, ah me! they were horny; | |
| Rough were her thick ruddy arms, shapely and round as they were; | |
| Rough too her glowing cheeks; and her sunburnt face and forehead | |
| Browner than cairngorm seem’d, set in her amber-bright hair. | |
| Yet ’t was a handsome face; the beautiful regular features | 25 |
| Labor could never spoil, ignorance could not degrade: | |
| And in her clear blue eyes bright gleams of intelligence linger’d; | |
| And on her warm red mouth, Love might have ’lighted and lain. | |
| Never an unkind word nor a rude unseemly expression | |
| Came from that soft red mouth; nor in those sunny blue eyes | 30 |
| Lived there a look that belied the frankness of innocent girlhood— | |
| Fearless, because it is pure; gracious, and gentle, and calm. | |
| Have you not seen such a face, among rural hardworking maidens | |
| Born but of peasant stock, free from our Dorothy’s shame? | |
| Just such faces as hers—a countenance open and artless, | 35 |
| Where no knowledge appears, culture, nor vision of grace; | |
| Yet which an open-air life and simple and strenuous labor | |
| Fills with a charm of its own—precious, and warm from the heart? | |
| Hers was full of that charm; and besides, was something ennobled, | |
| Something adorn’d, by thoughts due to a gentle descent: | 40 |
| So that a man should say, if he saw her afield at the milking, | |
| Or with her sickle at work reaping the barley or beans, | |
| “There is a strapping wench—a lusty lass of a thousand, | |
| “Able to fend for herself, fit for the work of a man!” | |
| But if he came more near, and she lifted her face to behold him, | 45 |
| “Ah,” he would cry, “what a change! Surely a lady is here!” | |
| Yes—if a lady be one who is gracious and quiet in all things, | |
| Thinking no evil at all, helpful wherever she can; | |
| Then too at White Rose Farm, by the martins’ cliff in the valley, | |
| There was a lady; and she was but the servant of all. | 50 |
| True, when she spoke, her speech was the homely speech of the country; | |
| Rough with quaint antique words, picturesque sayings of old: | |
| And, for the things that she said, they were nothing but household phrases— | |
| News of the poultry and kine, tidings of village and home; | |
| But there was something withal in her musical voice and her manner | 55 |
| Gave to such workaday talk touches of higher degree. | |
| So too, abroad and alone, when she saw the sun rise o’er the meadows, | |
| Or amid golden clouds saw him descending at eve; | |
| Though no poetic thought, no keen and rapturous insight, | |
| Troubled her childlike soul, yet she could wonder and gaze; | 60 |
| Yet she could welcome the morn for its beauty as well as its brightness | |
| And, in the evening glow, think—not of supper alone. | |
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