|
Son said my mother when I was knee high |
|
You need of clothes to cover you and not a rag have I |
|
There's nothing in the house to make a boy's britches |
|
Nor shears to cut a cloth with nor thread to take stitches |
|
There's nothing in the house but a leaf end of rye |
|
And the harp with a with the woman's head nobody will by and she began to cry |
|
That was in the early fall and when came the late fall |
|
Son she said the sight of you makes your mother's blood crawl |
|
Little skinny shoulder blades stickin' through your clothes |
|
And where you get a jacket from God above knows |
|
It's lucky for me lad your daddy's in the ground |
|
And can't see the way I let his son go around and she made a queer sound |
|
That was in the late fall when the winter came |
|
I'd not a pair of bridges nor a shirt to my name |
|
I couldn't go to school or out of doors to play |
|
And all the other little boys passed our way |
|
Son said my mother come climb into my lap |
|
And I'll chave your little knees while you take a nap |
|
And oh but we were silly for half an hour or more |
|
Me with my long legs draggin' on the floor |
|
I rocked rocked rocked to a mother goose rhyme |
|
Oh but we were happy for half an hour's time |
|
But there was I a great boy and what would folks say |
|
To hear my mother singin' me to sleep all day in such a daft way |
|
Men say the winter was bad that year fuel was scarce and food was dear |
|
A wind with a wolf's head howled about our door |
|
And we burned up the chairs and sat upon the floor |
|
All that was left us was a chair we couldn't break |
|
And the harp with the woman's head nobody would take for song or pity sake |
|
The night before Christmas I cried with the cold |
|
I cried myself to sleep like a two year old |
|
And in the deep night I felt my mother rise |
|
And stare down upon me with love in her eyes |
|
I saw my mother sitting on the one good chair |
|
A light falling on her face from I couldn't tell where |
|
Looking nineteen and not a day older |
|
And the harp with the woman's head leaned against her shoulder |
|
Her thin fingers moving in the thin tall strings |
|
Were weave weave weaving wonderful things |
|
Many bright threads from where I couldn't see |
|
Were running through the harp strings rapidly |
|
And gold threads whistlin' through my mother's hands |
|
I saw the web grow and the pattern expand |
|
She wove a child's jacket and when it was done |
|
She laid it on the floor and wove another one |
|
She wove a red cloak so regal to see |
|
She's made it for a king's son I said and not for me but I knew it was for me |
|
She wove a pair of bridges and quicker than that |
|
She wove a pair of boots a little cocked hat |
|
She wove a pair of mittens she wove a little blouse |
|
She wove all night in the still cold house |
|
She sang as she worked and the harp strings spoke |
|
But her voice never faltered and the thread never broke |
|
But when I awoke there sat my mother |
|
With the harp against her shoulder lookin' nineteen and not a day older |
|
A smile about her lips and a light about her head |
|
And her hands in the harp strings frozen dead |
|
And piled up beside her toppling to the skies |
|
Were the clothes of a king's son just my size |
