George and Lucy Plowman
Song of the Little Old Rocker
By George Plowman
~~~
Here I am, dressed out anew,
In nineteen hundred eight.
Not many of my early chums
Can boast of such a fate.
~~~
I’ve helped to soothe the restless child
When the fire was burning bright,
With a ruddy blaze and glowing coals,
By the fireplace at night.
~~~
I’ve heard the hum of the spinning wheel
As the housewife made it fly,
While she drew the thread out from the roll
And hummed a lullaby.
~~~
I’ve watched the reel, reel off the skein
When the spindle full had got
And listened for the little click,
The signal for the knot.
~~~
I’ve seen the skein stretched on the swifts
And the swifts go whirling round
As the quillwheel turned the shuttle’s quill
And the yarn on the quill was wound.
~~~
I’ve listened to the noisy loom
Beneath a lowly roof,
While the shuttle through the warp would fly
And the lathe bang up the woof.
~~~
This all I’ve seen and heard, and more,
I’ve seen the forest wane,
And by the woodman’s axe to fade
Into a fertile plain.
~~~
I’ve rocked the babies now grown old
And the babies they have born
And I’ll be rocking babies still
When Gabriel blows his horn.
~~~
The different coats that I have had,
To know would be a shocker,
Though now disguised with Japalac,
I’m Lucy’s same old rocker.
